Video: Saddleback Bass Instructor Inspires Youths with New CD

Luther Hughes has been a jazz mainstay in and around Orange County for more than four decades.

This bass player has recorded with Gene Harris, Quincy Jones, Hampton Hawes, Louis Bellson, Charlie Shoemake, Carmen McRae, Horace Silver, Joe Pass, the Crusaders and lots of other musical icons. When he’s not recording, he’s inspiring fledgling musicians to play the bass at Mission Viejo’s Saddleback Community College, as well as at Cal State Fullerton and Fullerton College.

LUTHER:  "I don’t remember the exact year I started teaching at Saddleback College, but it was years ago. I think that might have been the first place where I did any college teaching. Bill Kirk was running the jazz program then. It could have been the late '70s or perhaps the early '80s. The '80s would be my guess."

PATCH:  Tell me about teaching music and how music matters in the educational system.

LUTHER: I was talking to one of my students today. He’s about 18 or 19 and proceeded to tell me how his college courses are pretty much straight-ahead-jazz and big band. But he’s not sure if he really sees himself being a jazz musician. I said, "Well, what do you see yourself doing?" He said more funk and fusion sort of stuff.  I said, "Well, that’s what you’ve got to do. What I’m trying to do is prepare you to be able to play many different styles. Because if your heart’s telling you to play music and a certain style of music, that’s what you have to do.  But you don’t always get to play exactly what you want."

There’s a piano player that I play with from time to time. I sub for a buddy of mine, and my buddy referred to this piano player as "Knuckles." I really don’t have to take those gigs anymore, but if I’m not working, I’ll go play with this guy. It’s a duo gig, and I realize a couple of things happen. One is I pick up some money. Second thing is, I’m playing my instrument, and having to carry this guy along makes me a stronger player.”

I enjoy hearing Luther Hughes play the upright bass. It’s the dinosaur of violins, sometimes referred to as a contrabass, a bull fiddle, a dog-house bass or a string bass. Generally speaking, this instrument is the basement or foundation of any musical group, particularly in straight-ahead jazz.

The electric bass is more compact and generally used in contemporary, electronic music. Both basses are able to establish rhythm, as well as produce melody and harmony.  Luther Hughes plays each instrument with equal adroitness.

LUTHER:  I’m constantly amazed by how many young people want to play jazz. I have a young guy who just turned 18, in his second semester at Cal State, playing upright [bass], and he’s a serious straight-ahead jazz lover! When I was his age, I would have given both of my legs to be able to play like this kid can play. He started listening to Joe Pass when he was 15. He’s already got the concept, and he understands the jazz vocabulary. I told him the other day, "I should be paying the college for the privilege of working with you.”

The Luther Hughes comments exhibit humility, but Luther’s own credits speak volumes. He studied at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music and earned his bachelor of arts degree from Cal State Long Beach.  He’s served as an educator at Golden West College, as well as at the Musicians Institute. For nearly four decades, Luther Hughes has performed or recorded with a plethora of jazz legends. He’s  participated as a band member on several television and film scores, including Boston Legal, and appeared in six episodes of  Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, where he was actually seen playing bass on the film as a holographic character.

This talented bass man once worked as part of the legendary Johnny Carson late night band and also on Pat Sajak’s TV show. Remember when the Wheel of Fortune host had a short-lived television talk show?

With these exceptional credentials, no wonder Hughes was invited to share his amazing double bass talents with students at Saddleback College. He’s also served as Southern California director for Bruce Foreman’s Jazz Masters Workshop at the Boys & Girls Club, exposing kids to musical instruments. I asked him about that experience.

LUTHER:  We saw this shy little girl who played piano and could read music, and she was our little star. It was fun to see kids come out of their shell with music as the catalyst. One of the most profound experiences I ever had was part of Bruce Foreman’s organization called the Jazz Masters Workshop. We did an after-school program in Laguna Beach for the Boys  & Girls Club; basically a quartet, a guitar player, Denny Dennis, Sam Shepherd, and some others. So the kids would come in, and we’d say, "Hey would you like to try and play this instrument?"

Some of them had never touched an instrument before. So the thing that’s most exciting about that is we would get some of these little kids to come in, at first just terrified to try playing. They’re looking, and you know they want to, but they’re scared.  After a number of weeks watching us, they would finally try it. After they’d do that, they were having a lot of fun.

We gave them praise and said you’re wonderful and so talented. So in a matter of months, you would see their self-esteem and self-confidence build. Some of these kids were like grade-school-age. To me that was the most important thing that we did there; help these kids boost their self-esteem.

Unfortunately, the Boys & Girls Club ended about a year ago. Get a load of this: The lady who was the director of the club (who was younger than me and so sweet, I thought of her like a daughter), called me into her office to tell me that they were going to stop the program because they had lost the funding. When she told me this, she cried. She said our program was so good for the kids she hated losing it. I tried to console her and  told her that the money would come back again and that we’d come back again. That really got to me.

Although Hughes enjoys working with talented newcomers, his passion is for performing with his all-star ensemble. As a bass player who appreciates the saxophone genius and arrangements of both John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley, he decided to put a musical project together that would celebrate the 1959 landmark jazz album that paired Adderley and Coltrane in their one and only Chicago-based recording date.

Hughes picked up the phone and started calling players. Approximately ten months later, the Cannonball/Coltrane Project (C.C.P.) was receiving accolades and being played on radio stations nationwide. 

In 2011, the Cannonball/Coltrane Project has returned for the fourth time, titled “Things Are Getting Better” named after the popular Cannonball Adderley composition. For jazz buffs, it brings to mind the album that stellar saxophonist Cannonball Adderley recorded with Detroit vibraphonist, Milt Jackson. This newest release features Ed Czach on piano, Glenn Cashmann on tenor saxophone, Bruce Babad playing Alto saxophone, Paul Kreibich on trap drums and their leader acting as master of the bass. This album is a testimony, not only to the talents of Luther Hughes and his group, but to the hard work and dedication that has produced the fourth successful Hughes project. Anytime you have iconic musicians like James Moody calling your music "dazzling and brilliant,” along with Horace Silver, Mundell Lowe, and Roy McCurdy praising your recording project, you have got to be doing something right!

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