Smart and Soulful

The invigorating solos played by the ever-inventive modern mainstream jazz trumpeter Steve Huffsteter are always a pleasure.

Huffsteter--a veteran of bands led by Stan Kenton, Louie Bellson and scores more--can start with a phrase that’s as soft as a murmur and end it with the harshness of a cracking whip. Other passages are crisp and biting from the outset, and grow progressively heated. Whatever he plays, Huffsteter invests his music with a hummable lyricism. His solos tell a story.

“Music has syntax,” said Huffsteter, 60, who grew up in Monroe, Mich. “You can tell when something starts, when it’s in the middle and when it’s ended. . . . A musical idea is just like a sentence. It has to make sense. So you keep gathering new verbs, nouns, adjectives. But if you don’t have that unifying factor, it’s just a bunch of notes.”

Clearly to Huffsteter, jazz improvisation is far more than just playing what he feels. It’s about employing both his instinct and intellect, and keeping them in balance.

“The artistic impulses are said to come from the right brain, and the exactitudes--keeping the tempo, playing the right pitches and so on--come from the left brain,” he said by phone from the home in Altadena he shares with his wife, percussionist Dee Huffsteter. “Somehow, you control these two [spheres] without either one taking charge, or else things go awry.”

Huffsteter has applied this philosophy throughout his 45-year career, sparking ensembles led by Kenton, Bellson, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Bob Florence and Cecilia Coleman, to name just five. It’s with pianist Coleman’s quintet that he most often, and happily, appears.

“I’m the luckiest man alive to have such a vehicle as Cecilia’s band to practice in,” said the trumpeter, who is heard on Coleman’s two latest Resurgent Records CDs: 1995’s “Young and Foolish” and the recently released “Home.” “She never stops composing, practicing, never sits still. She’s the true definition of an artist.”

For a change, Huffsteter steps out on his own Thursday through Saturday, joining Danny Pucillo’s trio for a selection of classic standards at Monty’s in Woodland Hills.

Playing evergreens from the pop and jazz repertoire is like walking down memory lane for Huffsteter. “When I hear one of those tunes, I’ll remember something about where I first heard it, or who I’ve played it with, recalling all that era,” he said, referring to the bop years of the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s, when jazzmen regularly packed their tune lists with great pop songs. “Just take Cole Porter,” he said. “You can play a whole night of nothing but his music and please everyone.”

The trumpeter likes surprises, too, and looks forward to tunes the other musicians suggest. “Then I get a chance to be challenged,” he said, “to find out about a tune I’m not that familiar with.”

Huffsteter’s life in jazz has been a rich one, one that has allowed him the freedom to deeply explore his art form. But he could have found equal satisfaction in another pursuit, he said.

“The trick is to be a creative liver, in your interests, in your interactions with people,” he said. “Try to live life like you were the hero of the book you’re reading. Try to give yourself some good parts.”

* Steve Huffsteter plays with Danny Pucillo’s trio (Claude Williamson, piano; Ernie McDaniel, bass) 7:30-11:30 p.m. tonight and 8:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. Friday and Saturday at Monty’s Steakhouse, 5371 Topanga Canyon Blvd., Woodland Hills. No cover, no minimum. Call (818) 716-9736).

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Bi-Musical Horn: Saxman Fred Horn grew up liking both straight-ahead jazz and R & B funk--and he’s not about to give up either. So when he makes an appearance with his band, as he does Friday at Jax in Glendale, he plays in both styles, adding some jazz spice to his funk brew to give his sets more unity.

Rhythm is the central factor in any tune he plays, says the Milwaukee native who has lived in Los Angeles since 1989 and whose debut CD is “Steady Fready” on Horn Blower Records.

“Straight-ahead jazz, with its swinging feeling and the drummer’s steady ride cymbal beat, sets up a nice rhythm to play melodically on,” Horn says. “And on a funk tune, you can set up rhythmic motifs which you vary, creating tension. In a way, the soloist becomes almost like an additional soloist.”

* Fred Horn plays 9 p.m.-1:30 a.m. Friday at Jax, 339 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale. No cover, no minimum. Call (818) 500-1604.