HUBERT LAWS

Hubert Laws (born November 10, 1939) is an American flutist with a 30-year career in jazz, classical, and other music genres. Laws is an extremely gifted musician, and is one of the few classical artists who has also mastered jazz, pop, and rhythm-and-blues genres; moving effortlessly from one repertory to another.

Biography

Hubert Laws, Jr. was born November 10, 1939, in the Studewood section of Houston, Texas, the second of eight children to Hubert Laws, Sr. and Miola Luverta Donahue. Many of his siblings also entered the music industry, including saxophonist Ronnie Laws and vocalists Eloise, Debra, and Johnnie Laws. He began playing flute in high school after volunteering to substitute for the school orchestra's regular flutist. He became adept at jazz improvisation by playing in the Houston-area jazz group the Swingsters, which eventually evolved into the Modern Jazz Sextet, the Night Hawks, and the Crusaders. At age 15, was a member of the early Jazz Crusaders while in Texas (1954-1960), and he also played classical music during those years.

Juilliard and classical music

Winning a scholarship to New York's Juilliard School of Music in 1960, he studied music both in the classroom and with master flutist Julius Baker, and played with both the New York Metropolitan Opera Orchestra (member) and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, 1969-72. In this period his renditions of classical compositions by Gabriel Faure, Stravinsky, Debussy, and Bach on the 1971 CTI recording Rite of Spring—with a string section and such jazz stalwarts as Airto Moreira, Jack DeJohnette, Bob James, and Ron Carter—earned him an audience of classical music aficionados. He would return to this genre in 1976 with a recording of Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet.

Jazz

While at Juillard Laws played flute during the evenings with several acts, including Mongo Santamaria, 1963-67 and in 1964 began recording as a bandleader for the Atlantic label, and he released the albums The Laws of Jazz, Flute By-Laws, and Laws Cause. He guested on albums by Ashford and Simpson, Chet Baker, and George Benson. He also recorded with younger brother Ronnie Laws album The Laws in the early Seventies, a treasure for Jazz Aficcionados. He also played flute on Gil Scott-Heron's 1972 album Free Will, which featured the jazz poem "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." During the mid-1980s he went into semi-retirement for seven years.

In the 1990s Laws resumed his career, playing on the 1991 Spirituals in Concert recording by opera singers Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman. His albums on the Music Masters label—My Time Will Come in 1990 and, more particularly, Storm Then Calm in 1994—are regarded by critics as a return to the form he exhibited on his early 1970s albums. He also recorded a tribute album to jazz pianist and pop-music vocalist Nat King Cole, Hubert Laws Remembers the Unforgettable Nat King Cole, which received critical accolades. Among the many artists he has played and recorded with are Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Nancy Wilson, Quincy Jones, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Lena Horne, Leonard Bernstein, James Moody, Jaco Pastorius, Sergio Mendes,Bob James, Carly Simon, George Benson, Clark Terry, Stevie Wonder, J. J. Johnson, and The Rascals.

The 2006 video Hubert Laws Live 30-year Video Retrospective, available only at hubertlaws.com, includes "Red Hot & Cool" with Nancy Wilson, Performance in Brazil, Johnny Carson Show Appearance, The 1975 Downbeat Reader's Poll Awards, Performance in Japan, and Performance in Germany.

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Internationally renowned flutist Hubert Laws is one of the few classical artists who has also mastered jazz, pop, and rhythm-and-blues genres; moving effortlessly from one repertory to another. He has appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta, with the orchestras of Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, Cleveland, Amsterdam, Japan, Detroit and with the Stanford String Quartet. He has given annual performances at Carnegie Hall, and has performed sold out performances in the Hollywood Bowl with fellow flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal and was a member of the New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera Orchestras. In addition, he has appeared at the Montreux, Playboy, and Kool Jazz festivals; he performed with the Modern Jazz Quartet at the Hollywood Bowl in 1982 and with the Detroit Symphony in 1994. His recordings have won three Grammy nominations.

Mr. Laws has been involved in unique projects such as collaborations with Quincy Jones, Bob James, and Claude Bolling for Neil Simon's comedy California Suite, a collaboration with Earl Klugh and Pat Williams on the music for How to Beat the High Cost of Living: and film scores for The Wiz, Color Purple, A Hero Ain't Nothing but a Sandwich, and Spot Marks the X.

There are 20 albums in Mr. Laws' discography for such record companies as: Atlantic, CBS, CTI, including: “My Time Will Come,” and “Storm Then The Calm” for the Music Masters record label.

Session work also remains a staple of Hubert Laws' schedule, and includes collaborations and recordings with such artists as Quincy Jones, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Freddie Hubbard, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Aretha Franklin, Lena Horne, Sergio Mendes, Bob James, Carly Simon, Clark Terry, Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic.

In addition, Mr. Laws maintains his own publishing companies, Hulaws Music and Golden Flute Music, and he founded Spirit Productions in 1976 to produce his own albums and those of promising new artists. He was selected the No. 1 flutist in Down Beat readers' polls ten years in a row and was the critic's choice seven consecutive years.

Born in Houston, Mr. Laws' musical education came from various sources. He grew up directly across from a honky-tonk called Miss Mary's Place, his grandfather played the harmonica, and his mother played gospel music on the piano. His classical training got under way in high school. He later enrolled in the music department at Texas Southern University. During this period, he arranged to study privately with Clement Barone who Mr. Laws considers had a profound effect on his development. From there he traveled to Los Angeles with the Jazz Crusaders where he won a scholarship to the Juilliard School of music in New York City. Mr. Laws completed his studies and obtained his degree at the Juilliard School of music in New York City under tutelage of the renowned flutist Julius Baker.

Hubert Laws Musical Backgroun

Hubert's musical education has always been an amalgamation. For starters, his boyhood home was directly across the street from an honest-to-goodness honky-tonk, Miss Mary's Place, which still sits on the same spot in Houston's Studewood section. His grandfather played the harmonica and often entertained as a one-man band. His mother, Miola, played gospel music on piano.

The second of eight children in a musical family, Hubert grew up playing rhythm and blues and gospel at dances in the neighborhood. Brother Ronnie and sisters, Eloise and Debra, have all made their mark in the music industry, while sister Blanche has devoted her talent to gospel singing and brother Johnnie has contributed his voice on Hubert's recordings. It's fitting that Hubert's fourth album for Columbia was entitled Family, featuring almost the entire Laws clan.

Starting out on Piano then Mellophone and alto sax, Hubert picked up the flute in high school while volunteering to fill-in on a flute solo performance with his high school orchestra. Music teacher, Clement Barone, is credited with teaching Hubert the fundamentals. During his early teens, Hubert was exposed to jazz by high school band director Sammy Harris at Phillis Wheatley High School. He enjoyed the freedom of improvisation and the creativity allowed by jazz and began playing regularly with a Houston group known variously as the Swingsters, the Modern Jazz Sextet, Night Hawks, the Jazz Crusaders, and more recently, the Crusaders.

After high school, Hubert enrolled in the Music Department at Texas Southern University. After two years there he left with the Crusaders for Los Angeles. This soon became a point of departure to the Juilliard School of Music in New York. Winning a scholarship that would cover the cost of tuition in 1960, Hubert left for New York in a 1950 Plymouth Sedan with $600.00 in his pocket. Fondly remembering the moment he realized his savings would not cover the necessities of life in New York, Hubert recalled, “It was the fall of 1960. I was down to my last fifty bucks and wondering what to do when the phone rang and it was a call offering me my first job at Sugar Ray's Lounge in Harlem. Times were tough then, but, I haven't looked back since.”

Studying all day every day in class or with master flautist Julius Baker, evenings were devoted to gigging for support. Soon Hubert was playing with the likes of Mongo Santamaria, Lloyd Price Big Band, John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet, the Orchestra USA, and the Berkshire Festival Orchestra at Tanglewood -- summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Recording session work became a staple of Hubert's schedule and included Quincy Jones, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Aretha Franklin, Lena Horne, James Moody, Sergio Mendes, Bob James, Carly Simon, George Benson, Clark Terry, and J.J. Johnson. During those tough times, the ability to play R&B and jazz enabled him not only to survive, but to thrive. Hubert believes musicians would do well to learn how to play in a variety of musical idioms.

Source: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/musician.php?id=8624

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Recording solo albums and collaborating with other artists in several genres, including classical, pop, and R&B, flutist Hubert Laws most often is associated with jazz music. As a member of the Modern Jazz Sextet in the 1950s, Laws honed his jazz sensibilities, but he left the group before it changed its name and became popular as the Jazz Crusaders. Laws was one of the musicians of the 1950s who popularized the use of the flute in a jazz context, historically placing him among such other jazz flutists as Jerome Richardson, Frank Wess, and Bud Shank. Other contemporary jazz flutists, however, were primarily saxophonists who played flute as a secondary instrument. A notable exception is flutist Herbie Mann, but unlike Mann, Laws adapted many classical standards to the jazz idiom, including works by composers Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Mozart, Claude Debussy, and Igor Stravinsky.

Laws collaborated on a series of popular concerts with classical music flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal, as well as performing on recordings by such diverse pop, jazz, and R&B performers as Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Aretha Franklin, Lena Home, James Moody, Sergio Mendes, Bob James, Carly Simon, George Benson, Clark Terry, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Quincy Jones, and J. J. Johnson. Laws's distinctive style of flute playing has been noted by several critics as a critical influence on subsequent use of the instrument in jazz, pop, classical, and Latin music. His impact on Latin music stems from his collaborations with New York Latin ensembles led by Mongo Santamaria and Willie Bobo.

Laws was born in the Studewood section of Houston, Texas, the second of eight children. Many of his siblings also entered the music industry, including saxophonist Ronnie Laws and vocalists Eloise, Debra, and Johnnie Laws. Hubert Laws's first instrument was the piano. The family's home was across the street from Miss Mary's Place, a honky tonk saloon that served liquor and served as a venue for a variety of live musical acts. Laws's mother played gospel music on piano for her family, and his grandfather played harmonica. Laws began his initial musical instruction by learning the mellophone and alto saxophone. He began playing flute in high school after volunteering to substitute for the school orchestra's regular flutist. Laws arranged for private musical instruction from Clement Barone, who taught Laws the fundamentals of the flute, while his high school band director, Sammy Harris, introduced him to jazz music. He became adept at jazz improvisation by playing in the Houston-area jazz group the Swingsters, which eventually evolved into the Modern Jazz Sextet, the Night Hawks, the Jazz Crusaders, and the Crusaders.

Upon graduation from high school, Laws enrolled in the music department at Texas Southern University. Before he could graduate, however, he left school to travel with the Modern Jazz Sextet to Los Angeles. He then took classes at the Los Angeles State College of Applied Arts and Sciences but left after winning a scholarship to New York's Juilliard School of Music in 1960. He departed for the East Coast in a 1950 Plymouth sedan with $600. After arriving in New York City in 1960, he stated on his website, "I was down to my last fifty bucks and wondering what to do when the phone rang." The phone call was to set up his first paid performance in New York, at Sugar Ray's Lounge in Harlem. He matriculated at Juilliard and studied music both in the classroom and with master flutist Julius Baker. During the evenings, he played flute with several acts, including Mongo Santamaria, John Lewis, Orchestra USA, and the Berkshire Festival Orchestra.

In 1964 Laws began recording as a bandleader for the Atlantic label, and he released the albums The Laws of Jazz, Flute By-Laws, and Laws' Cause. During this period, he also played with Santamaria, Clark Terry, Benny Golson, Jim Hall, and James Moody. He guested on albums by Ashford and Simpson, Chet Baker, and George Benson. He also played flute on Gil Scott-Heron's 1972 album Free Will, which featured the jazz poem "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." In the early 1970s Laws released a series of highly regarded albums on the CTI label. Such albums as Crying Song, Wild Flower, Morning Star, the live recording At Carnegie Hall, In the Beginning, and Chicago Theme are considered the watershed of his jazz career. In addition, his renditions of classical compositions by Gabriel Faure, Stravinsky, Debussy, and Bach on the 1971 CTI recording Rite of Spring—with a string section and such jazz stalwarts as Airto Moreira, Jack DeJohnette, Bob James, and Ron Carter—earned him a new audience of classical music aficionados. Despite the critical and commercial successes of his CTI output, however, his subsequent recordings of the late 1970s and early 1980s generally are dismissed by critics as commercial records resembling pop music more than jazz or classical music. During the mid-1980s he went into semi-retirement for seven years.

In the 1990s Laws resumed his career, playing on the 1991 Spirituals in Concert recording by opera singers Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman. His albums on the Music Masters label—My Time Will Come in 1990 and, more particularly, Storm Then Calm in 1994—are regarded by critics as a return to the form he exhibited on his early 1970s albums. He also recorded a tribute album to jazz pianist and pop-music vocalist Nat King Cole, Hubert Laws Remembers the Unforgettable Nat King Cole, which received critical accolades.

Laws began his own music publishing companies, Hulaws Music and Golden Flute Music, and he founded Spirit Productions in 1976 to produce his own albums and albums by new artists. He was named the numberone flutist in the Down Beat readers' poll for ten straight years and was the critics' choice for seven consecutive years. He collaborated on the soundtrack to the Neil Simon comedy California Suite with Quincy Jones and Claude Boiling; worked with Earl Klugh and Pat Williams for the soundtrack of How to Beat the High Cost of Living, and contributed work to film scores for The Wiz, The Color Purple, A Hero Ain't Nothing but a Sandwich, and Spot Marks the X.

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Biography by Scott Yanow

A talented flutist whose musical interest was never exclusively straight-ahead jazz, Hubert Laws exceeded Herbie Mann in popularity in the 1970s when he recorded for CTI. He was a member of the early Jazz Crusaders while in Texas (1954-1960) and he also played classical music during those years. In the 1960s, Laws made his first recordings as a leader (Atlantic dates from 1964-1966) and gigged with Mongo Santamaria, Benny Golson, Jim Hall, James Moody, and Clark Terry, among many others. His CTI recordings from the first half of the 1970s made Laws famous and were a high point, particularly compared to his generally wretched Columbia dates from the late '70s. He was less active in the 1980s, but has come back with a pair of fine Music Masters sessions in the 1990s. After those releases, a tribute to Nat King Cole arrived in 1998, followed four years later by a stab at Latin jazz, Baila Cinderella. The sharp and cool Moondance appeared in spring 2004. Hubert Laws has the ability to play anything well, but he does not always seem to have the desire to perform creative jazz.

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Hubert is the brother of Debra Laws, Eloise Laws and Ronnie Laws.

He originally studied piano, but his high-school band required a flute player so Hubert learned this instrument instead.

His professional engagements began in 1954 after he joined a local jazz group.

In the six years he played with them, they changed their name from The Nite Hawks to The Swingsters and then The Modern Jazz Sextet before becoming The Jazz Crusaders in 1960.

Upon his departure the group became The Crusaders. 

Hubert also studied classical flute and played as a soloist with the Houston Youth Symphony Orchestra before he moved to Los Angeles in 1958 and found work with artists including Mongo Santamaria, Lena Horne, Arthur Prysock and Sergio Mendes. 

As a solo recording artist he spent a brief period with Blue Note Records before recording three albums for the CTI label, 'The Chicago Theme' (1975), 'Afro Classic' (1976), and 'The San Francisco Concerts' (1977).

The latter album was released just after he had signed to CBS Records where his first album was 'Romeo And Juliet' (1976). 

Appealing to UK jazz funk fans, his later albums include 'California Suite' (a soundtrack album with Composer / pianist Claude Bollins, 1978), Say It With Silence' (1978), 'Land Of Passion' (1979), including 'We're In Ecstasy', 'Family' (1980), featuring his sister Debra Laws on the title track, 'How To Beat The High Cost Of Living' (a soundtrack album with Earl Klugh, 1980) and 'Make It Last' (1983). 

His wife is the sister of Cheryl Cooley of the group Klymaxx, and Hubert at one time gave Cheryl guitar lessons!

Hubert has also recorded with artists including Roberta Flack ('Chapter Two'), Norman Connors ('Slewfoot'), Alphonse Mouzon ('Morning Sun'), Bob James ('Touchdown'), Sarah Vaughan ('Brazilian Romance'), Patrice Rushen ('Before The Dawn'), and Charles Earland.

Source: http://www.soulwalking.co.uk/Hubert%20Laws.html

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Selective discography

1964 The Laws of Jazz / Flute By-Laws Jazz Atlantic 
1970 The Best of Hubert Laws (Reissue 1990) Jazz Sony 
1970 Antonio Carlos Jobim Stone Flower Jazz CTI produced by Creed Taylor 
1971 The Rite of Spring Classical CTI 
1972 Wild Flower Jazz Atlantic 
1974 In the Beginning Jazz CTI 
1975 Chicago Theme Jazz King 
1976 Romeo & Juliet Soul Jazz/Jazz Funk CTI 
1976 Bob James - BJ4 Jazz-fusion CTI key track is "Tappan Zee" 
1978 Say It With Silence Jazz Columbia 
1990 My Time Will Come Jazz Music Masters Jazz 
1994 Storm Then the Calm Jazz Music Masters Jazz 
1998 Hubert Laws Remembers the Unforgettable Nat "King" Cole Pop RKO/Unique 
2002 Baila Cinderella Jazz, Latin jazz Scepterstein 
2004 Moondance Jazz Savoy Jazz 
2005 Hubert Laws Plays Bach for Barone & Baker Classical Denon Records