Creed Taylor Produced

On this day, July 21st, 1973, Hubert Laws appeared in the CTI Summer Festival Municipal Auditorium in Atlanta. During a break, Hubert Laws was interviewed backstage by Curtis Deutsch for the “Great Speckled Hen,” also known as “The Bird.” The Bird was a counter-culture newspaper back then ^[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Speckled_Bird_(newspaper).

Founded by New Left activists from Emory University and members of the Southern Student Organizing Committee, an offshoot of Students for a Democratic Society, it focused on the Vietnam War, Black Power, women’s liberation, gay activism, red-baiting, Atlanta politics, labor, and environmental issues. This interview was published in the August 13, 1973, issue on page 23. It is courtesy of JSTOR and is part of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization.

It is reproduced here in as close to possible as the original. Spelling and punctuation may have been corrected/changed. No other changes have been made.

BIRD: When did you attend Julliard School of Music?
LAWS: I was there from 1960 to 1964.

BIRD: Who were some of your initial influences at that time, besides your teacher, Julius Baker?
LAWS: Actually, Julius Baker was not my initial influence, believe it or not. I was inspired by the sound of the classical flute. I went to symphony concerts, and I thought that the musicians handled the instruments a little bit differently than what I had heard with jazz artists. So I decided to use the instrument in that way and use it is a musical voice in the jazz idiom.

If you want to mention personalities, one influence would be Bernard Hextor who’s down at the Houston Symphony and also Clement Baronni, who came to be one of my teachers. He’s now playing in Detroit. Those were my early influences, also Sam Most
whom you can hear on record with Herbie Mann. I guess he was more of an influence to me in the jazz idiom.

BIRD: You were into jazz all during this period, weren’t you?
LAWS: I’ve always played improvised music. It started with my experience with gospel music, and it’s really like a carry-over. So while I was learning how to play classical repertoire, I was also into acquiring a harmonic development for improvised styles.

BIRD: You’re currently playing with the Metropolitan Opera, aren’t you?
LAWS: I’ve been playing with the Metropolitan Opera for the last four years, but I’ve also played with the New York Philharmonic for the last couple of years as an alternate. I couldn’t afford to play steadily with them because of my other music schedule.

BIRD: My friends who double on flute and other instruments tell me that the flute is very difficult to improvise on, for instance in terms of “compensation, do you find that to be true?
LAWS: Well, the flute is different from the saxophone in that the flute doesn’t have the resistance that the sax has. So there is a strong tendency to want to overblow the instrument. For that reason, it could be more difficult to improvise on. When you improvise, there is the tendency to become more intense. If you overblow, the instrument just won’t take it. I mean, you can do it but it will just sound like a bunch of air and you loose control of the sound and the tone.

BIRD: What plans do you have in recording with CTI? Do you intend to use the same personnel
you used on Morning Star?
LAWS: Yeah, the rhythm section, basically: Ron Carter, Bob James, Billy Cobham are on the album. Jack de Johnette: a great musician! He’s also a pianist; that helps a lot. Just to be a drummer and bang on some drums is not enough. You have to be sensitive to what is happening harmonically and melodically. To be a percussionist you have to have some knowledge of what is happening harmonically.

BIRD: How did you happen to meet Billy Cobham?
LAWS: I met him six or seven years ago when he way playing at the Old Hickory House on 52nd Street sitting in with the Billy Taylor Trio. It was about that time he and I were playing together in the New York Jazz Sextet. In fact, I introduced him to his wife, and they haven’t split since.

BIRD: Earlier you mentioned a series of transcriptions of your flute solos that were being published.
LAWS: Yes. Those books are the result of a concerted effort on my part and a friend of mine’s, Don Sichler, who works for a big music publishing firm. We use these books as a vehicle to educate other musicians as to how to improvise. Our efforts resulted
in this book, Flute Improvisations. This was just released last week. It will be available only through mail order. (For further info, write: HuLaws Publishing Company, PO Box 5578, Englewood, CA 90303.)

BIRD: How did you come to work with John Murtaugh?
LAWS: You are probably referring to the album Wildflower. Well, this has been about a seven-year acquaintanceship. A friend of mine who was at Julliard with me told me about a company which was recording TV commercial jingles. They were interested in a
flute player. John Murtaugh is actually a partner with Hal Bland in this company. Since Hal came to know John Murtaugh, the relationship developed to the point of our doing an album.

BIRD: Did Murtaugh write all the charts for Wildflower? ^[2]https://album.link/us/i/82456565
LAWS: He did the whole musical thing, except of course the improvised flute solos.

BIRD: The cut “Yoruba” on that album seemed thematically divorced from the rest of the album.
LAWS: Yeah, it sounds like it was from a different album, actually. It was. It was the only cut that used that rhythm section: Chick Corea, Ron Carter, Bernard Purdie, Joe Chambers, Mongo Santamaria, Gary Button on vibes. . .a whole bunch of rhythm/percussion players.

BIRD: How did you assemble such an incredible gathering of musicians?
LAWS: It’s very easy to do that. All you do is call them up and say. if the musicians are in town, “I’ve got a record debut.” If they have no contractual limitations with record companies they can consent to do it.

BIRD: I really dug that album.
LAWS: Yeah, Dan Morgenstern likes that, too; gave it five stars in downbeat. I was kind of surprised to see that reaction to the record: an all-string album with no rhythm section. It was a unique endeavor.