Recharged Maupin Returns to Jazz Spotlight After a Long Hiatus

In the ‘60s and ‘70s jazz reed man Bennie Maupin was much in demand. He was the kind of guy who commanded the attention of fans and peers alike: When he appeared on the street, people turned their heads, as if Muhammad Ali were walking by.

Maupin’s visceral, expanding-the-boundaries tenor saxophone, bass clarinet and flute work was spotlighted with Miles Davis on the primordial jazz/fusion album, “Bitches Brew,” with Herbie Hancock on the famed “Head Hunters” Columbia album and his “Mwandishi” albums on Warner Bros., and McCoy Tyner’s acclaimed “Tender Moments” Blue Note session.

He also performed and recorded with trumpeter Lee Morgan and pianist Horace Silver, co-led the group Headhunters and made a few albums under his own name for Mercury and ECM Records.

Then, in 1979, after a stint with Hancock that lasted a decade, Maupin vanished from the jazz horizons. Since that time, the renowned musician, who had moved to Southern California in 1972, has rarely appeared in public, and even resorted to taking day jobs as a truck driver and security systems monitor to pay the bills.

Now, Maupin, 52, is back to performing, playing every Friday evening in July at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. But what caused him to leave the high-profile niche he had carved for himself?

“I had been playing in bands since I was 14, and I experienced a burnout,” Maupin said recently by phone from his home in Altadena. “I was very tired of traveling, and I needed time to recharge.”

Maupin said a combination of things prompted his period of seclusion, among them a changing economy, personal problems and the feeling that he was finding himself in situations that were compromising his integrity as a musician.

“I reflected on why I started playing music, and it was because it was fun,” he said. “So when it stopped being fun, when it started to be like some kind of job, something I really didn’t like, that upset me. I never thought I’d reach the point where I’d stop playing, but when I did, I went with the feeling.”

Though Maupin may have stopped performing, he never gave up music. “I was very involved in the study of music,” he said. During 1982 and ‘83, he studied composition with the legendary Los Angeles teacher Lyle (Spud) Murphy.

Later, he took a class in film scoring at UCLA from Don Ray, where he wrote a number for a 17-piece orchestra and heard it played. “That was especially rewarding,” he said. “A lot of the things I have done with Spud I haven’t heard with real people yet. I definitely want to record some of this stuff.”

In the past few years, Maupin, who ended his last non-music job in 1988, also has worked with incarcerated youths; done concerts at the Fred C. Nelles School in Whittier; taught at Pasadena City College, and made scattered performances with bassist Sekou Bunch’s band and with the Hispanic Musicians Assn. big band.

But when he was asked to organize ensembles for the series at LACMA, Maupin felt the time was right to re-emerge as a leader.

“I feel refreshed, and feel a tremendous confidence that my decision to investigate other aspects of my life and music was the right decision,” he said. “I have had day gigs before, in New York, and those gave me a kind of stability that I couldn’t have had if I were just depending” on jobs as a performer.

At LACMA, Maupin plans to explore both jazz standards that aren’t always heard, and new material by himself and by his cohorts. “So many of my friends have written great things, and sometimes they don’t get that much exposure,” he said.

On Friday, Maupin will appear with pianist David Arney, bassist Toby Holmes and drummer Kenny Sara, playing a program of originals, as well as Eric Dolphy’s “Miss Ann.” July 23, the reed man heads up a trio featuring pianist Eric Reed, saluting compositions by Thelonious Monk. On July 30, the music of pianist Charles Mims is spotlighted.

When Maupin interprets classic material by the likes of Monk, Sonny Rollins and Dizzy Gillespie, his slant is to merge eras. “I’m looking for new ways to interpret tunes that were done a long time ago,” he said. “I’m trying to bring some of the elements of today into yesterday, blend the elements of free music into traditional, chordal-based music. To me, that’s the most interesting thing to do.”

This eclectic approach is just what Dorrance Stalvey, LACMA’s director of music programs, seeks for his Friday evening concerts. “We have been presenting jazz from the ‘50s up to the present, and our audience gets used to it, and keeps coming back for more,” he said.

As a youngster growing up in Detroit, Maupin fell under the influence of pianist Barry Harris and saxophonists Joe Henderson and Charles McPherson, who later made their name as mainstream jazz artists. Then, in the late ‘50s, he heard the groundbreaking, freely structured music of alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman, and his head spun.

“He changed my life,” Maupin said. “I loved what he played. I don’t know what it was, but it struck a chord in me.”

Another saxophonist intrigued by Coleman’s art was John Coltrane. When Coltrane visited Detroit, Maupin met Coltrane, who encouraged the youth to go to New York. “He was the one who really planted the seed,” said Maupin, who moved to Manhattan in 1963.

Once in the Apple, Coltrane continued to serve as Maupin’s mentor. “When I wasn’t working enough, he told me not to worry, to keep practicing, and everything would be cool,” Maupin said. “He was right. I got to be with everybody.”

Bennie Maupin plays from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Friday, July 23 and July 30 at the Times Mirror Central Court, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. Free. Call (213) 857-6000 or 857-6115.