VINCENT HERRING : A Craftsman From New York Canyons

Vincent Herring doesn’t have the manner of a musician who once played on the street corners of Manhattan. Soft-spoken, articulate and thoughtful, he has the air of a young professor of music, reflectively concerned with the elements of his craft.

But the 27-year-old alto saxophonist, best known for his powerful, be-bop-oriented playing with cornetist Nat Adderley’s bands, spent a few years in the early ‘80s learning that craft in the granite and steel canyons of New York.

“It sounds like kind of a strange thing to do, now, but it really wasn’t all that unusual at the time,” Herring says in a phone conversation from his Brooklyn home. “When I first came to New York around 1984, I remember seeing (saxophonist) Steve Coleman, (trombonist) Robin Eubanks and a lot of players like that playing on the street. The first time I heard (guitarist) Stanley Jordan, he was playing on the streets.

“I had no interest or desire in going out there as a soloist,” he says with a laugh. “That’s a different scene--guys out there just to make some change. But I never did that. I never had that kind of nerve.”

“The most important thing to me,” he continues, “was to develop my playing. I knew from analyzing the life and the history of the great players that the one thing they shared was the chance to consistently be in playing situations a lot--in addition to practicing.”

But the usual performing opportunities--clubs, concerts, jam sessions--for ambitious jazz neophytes were in short supply by the early ‘80s. At that time, New York City’s once highly interactive music scene--which took place in clubs in the ‘50s and lofts in the ‘60s and ‘70s--was not much more than a memory. Young, still-evolving musicians such as Herring were forced to turn to the streets to gain experience.

“I needed to play a lot to develop myself,” says Herring. “I needed to know what it was like to rehearse and argue, to play things right and wrong, to play them 40 times day to day, to hate a tune and still try to play it.”

Herring’s alfresco training has obviously paid off. His second album, “Secret Love” on Musicmasters Records, has recently been released, and sessions with Freddie Hubbard and a group known as the Manhattan Project are scheduled in the near future. He’ll also continue to tour with Adderley, with upcoming dates in New York, England and Japan.

In characteristically logical fashion, Herring attributes his achievements to hard work, constant practice, and the dues he paid as a street musician.

“As long as you prepare yourself, there’ll come a point when you’ll have your turn,” he says. “But you’d better be ready.”