Jazz Saxophonist Enters Uncharted Territory

Kim Richmond maintains an allegiance to risk.

When he plays his alto saxophone in his small jazz band, as he does Friday at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Richmond will be entering uncharted territory. That’s because much of the music that he and his colleagues deliver is very loosely structured and concocted right on the spot.

“We’re taking chances, that’s for sure. It’s either crash and burn or inspired heights,” he said with a laugh. He’ll be performing with pianist/trumpeter Dave Scott, bassist Ken Filiano, trumpeter Clay Jenkins and drummer Billy Mintz. “And when it’s really happening, the audience is right there with us,” the saxophonist said.

Richmond, who used to be a strictly be-bop improviser but started adding freer elements to his playing in the late 1980s, took a moment to explain his concepts.

“We’re stretching the boundaries of jazz a great deal, so that sometimes there may not seem to be boundaries, but there are to us. Our music is not without be-bop roots. Listeners will hear be-bop, but it will be in a much freer vein.

“Many of our tunes are simply linear, without supporting chord changes. So what we’re doing is playing melodies, melodic ideas, and the important thing is for us to listen to each other for cues about which way the music might go next. So it’s almost like a conversation with our fellow musicians that takes the place of the formality” of a series of underlying chord changes, on which most music--classical, popular and jazz--is based.

There’s a great deal of satisfaction in doing this type of music, particularly in the opportunities it presents for intimacy, said Richmond, a native of Champaign, Ill., who lives in Hollywood with his wife, artist Chris Zambon. He has lived in Los Angeles since 1967.

“You’re communicating closely with the people you’re playing with,” he said, contrasting that experience to the separateness that can occur when a soloist treats a rhythm section strictly as an accompaniment and doesn’t interact with those musicians. “So you have to surround yourself with musicians who think the same way,” he added.

Richmond’s small band can be heard on “Looking Out, Looking In,” available on CD and cassette on USA Records, and as an LP on Nine Winds Records.

He admitted that there’s not a lot of money to be made in jazz that has a freer core.

“Playing possibilities are limited, so we get together more often in rehearsals than in performance,” he said. “Or a few of us will play with someone else, like last Monday, when Billy, Ken and I played with saxophonist Vinny Golia at the Alligator Lounge in Santa Monica.”

The saxophonist said he opted for a less restrained stance in improvising during a period when he was looking for a stylistic direction. “I had started out as a be-bop player, then I got involved with jazz/fusion,” he said. “Then, in 1986, I spent a month studying with pianist Richie Beirach in Manhattan.

“He told me that I was good be-bop player of the ‘50s, but that it was now the ‘80s and maybe I should listen to the jazz of the ‘60s,” as exemplified by the Miles Davis quintet, which employed a less fettered approach. Beirach also suggested that Richmond check out such 20th-Century classical composers as Anton Webern, Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg.

“Richie really opened my eyes, and I began improvising from that context, sort of throwing caution to the winds,” Richmond said.

The musician still works in modern traditional modes. As a free-lance woodwind artist, Richmond does everything from playing the alto sax in the quintet that accompanies singer Natalie Cole to playing one-night jobs known as “casuals.”

He has also played with numerous big bands, first with Stan Kenton and Buddy Rich in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and more recently with Bob Florence and Bill Holman. On Florence’s just-out “Funupmanship,” Richmond solos with poise and passion on the leader’s version of Davis’ “All Blues.”

Richmond, who started his musical life as a clarinetist and majored on that instrument while obtaining both music and music education degrees at the University of Illinois, plays about 10 woodwinds, including saxes, clarinets, flutes and Electronic Woodwind Instrument. From all these, alto saxophone has emerged as his medium of choice. His characteristic alto sound is opulent and muscular.

“I feel I have a personal connection with it,” he said. “The range, the type of sounds and their equivalence to my voice--all these seem to strike a chord in me. And there’s a passion, a cry that I hear in that horn.”

Richmond, whose resume lists hundreds of performances with everyone from Frank Sinatra to Ann Jillian, is also active on two other fronts. He occasionally leads his Concert Jazz Orchestra, which is spotlighted on the recent “Passages” SeaBreeze Records release and will perform June 11 at the Hyatt Newporter in Newport Beach. And he’s written numerous originals and arrangements of standards for the band, which has a luminous, distinctive sound.

He can also be heard every third Wednesday as host of the radio program “Trilogy,” from 9 to 10 p.m. on KXLU-FM (88.9). Richmond’s format features a guest artist, who like himself takes musical risks, such as Vinny Golia or trombonist Bruce Fowler. He plays their records and talks about their approach to jazz.

“There’s a great deal of satisfaction in programming rarely exposed music,” he said.

Kim Richmond’s ensemble plays 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Friday in the Times Mirror Central Court, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. Free. Call (213) 857-6000 or (213) 857-6115.