Bennie Maupin

Jazz artist Bennie Maupin, a Detroit native, cannot recall a time that he wasn’t interested in music. His mother took him to the weekly show at Detroit’s Paradise Theater, where black entertainers appeared on a circuit that included the Apollo Theater in New York. When he was about 7 or 8, family friends moved to Detroit and lived with the Maupins for awhile. Fortunately, his family’s large house could accommodate not only the migrating family, but also their piano. That was that: Bennie was in love. When the friends moved into their own home, taking the piano with them, Bennie was devastated. But he didn’t give up on music. He took up the clarinet the summer after middle school, thanks to a program offered by the Detroit public schools. Alto saxophone study began in high school, soon followed by classical study with Larry Teal. By the time he was 14, Bennie was playing professionally in Detroit. After high school he enrolled in the Detroit Institute for Musical Arts. But fate, in the form of a call to tour with the Four Tops, intervened, and his career was off and running.

Even a partial roll call of his musical associations is extraordinary: Horace Silver, Roy Haynes, McCoy Tyner, Eric Dolphy, Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock, to name just a few.

In addition to his bass clarinet on Miles Davis’ seminal recording, Bitches Brew, and his work on saxophone, clarinet and flute with Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters band, Bennie has his own important jazz recordings, including The Jewel in the Lotus, Driving While Black and Penumbra. Bennie, who has a grown son, Jarmil, lives in Altadena with his wife, Barbara DuMetz, and their teenage son, Toussaint.

1. Do you need a certain set of circumstances, whether it is a state of mind, or a time of day, or a visit from the muse, to write music?

Some days I’m overflowing with ideas, and other days I just practice my instrument to maintain my musical fitness. I don’t force it, but if I want to write something, I’m never at a loss for ideas. Certain techniques I learned from Spud Murphy enable me to do that. (Ed. note: Murphy was a musician and composer with whom Bennie studied.) You just write one note at a time and your ideas get going. I write a lot in my head. I have dreamed music, but it has been a long time since I actually woke from a dream and remembered the music well enough to write it down. The first time I had that experience, it was just a beautiful musical dream and I woke up and remembered everything, so I sat down and wrote out the whole thing.

2. Say it was Bennie Maupin’s world—would you always want to be the leader of every band or ensemble with which you played?

No… that is not necessarily something I would want. Some of the things I’m most proud of have been collaborations with other people who came to me. I do believe that some of the best music has been written by more than an individual person. Collaboration is a great, great thing.

3. You are acclaimed throughout the world a jazz musician. But I’m wondering if there are other musical genres that your fans might be surprised to know are of real interest to you.

There are so many things. I just love music – period. They might be surprised if they were to find themselves in the passenger seat of my car while I’m listening to clarinet concertos played by Stanley Drucker, the principal clarinetist for the New York Philharmonic. That is what I’ve been playing for the past two weeks. He is a phenomenal player. I’ve been saturating myself with his sound and technique, and doing everything I can when I’m working on my clarinet studies, which is something I’m doing a lot lately. Truth is, the clarinet is a much more difficult instrument than the saxophone, and if you practice the clarinet, you will become a better saxophone player – the clarinet just demands so much of you. Sometimes I listen to the same music for weeks at a time because I hear it more deeply every time I listen.

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3 Favorites 

1. You have lived in Altadena for quite some time. Is it fair to call it a favorite place of yours?

It is a really mystical place, actually. I know you know that many years ago it was a destination that people came to from Chicago and New York and other cities to breathe the air and regain their health when they’d suffered from tuberculosis and other ailments. The peace that I find there really keeps me grounded. It is so quiet… I can step outside after practicing and look at the mountains at night, and the starry sky. It is just a great community, a diverse community: a lot of artists and musicians, and people…I don’t even know what they do, but they’re friendly. Everyone saying, Hey, how you doing? No matter where I go, I’m always so glad to get back. It’s pretty much been home since 1972.

2. All Altadenans have their favorite hangs. What’s yours?

It has to be Oh Happy Days, the health food store up on Lake. I’ve known John, the owner, for a long time. I just went there and had a bowl of lima beans with brown rice and tofu. Just great. (Ed. note: See the 3+3 with Altadenan Mary Jean Shaffer, another big fan of Oh Happy Days.) And there is Perry’s Joint on Lincoln, across the street from The Spot. They have sandwiches and salads and ice cream, and the place is dedicated to jazz. There are photographs of Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock on the walls and nothing but jazz music playing all day. Billy Childs (ed note: a brilliant jazz pianist) lived here ‘til he moved down to South Pas and he’d call sometimes and say, “I’m coming up for air, you want to go grab a sandwich at Perry’s?”

3. Your son Toussaint is pretty grown up now, but did you have a favorite kid place with him?

It would have to be Singer Park, at St. John and California. We used to take him there all the time, and it was funkier then. It is really beautiful now. I just drove past it and I remembered how it used to scare my wife when Toussaint was a little kid and he would climb to the top of the bars. She would freak out. I’d tell her, it’s okay…some time, he is gonna fall, but not today, and I’d coax him down. So he would play and we met a lot of folks who had kids. Having Toussaint really carried me into a completely different phase of my life.

 — by Jill Alison Ganon

Ed. note: To learn more about Bennie and his music, go to www.benniemaupin.com.