“The thing with the flute is that it’s cathartic…When it comes to actually using a part of the natural environment to amplify the sound you’re hearing in your head, the flute’s the oldest instrument that they found,” Shabaka Hutchings told The Guardian newspaper in June 2024. A year earlier, Hutchings had announced that he was putting down the saxophone to focus solely on the flute, leading him to master the shakuhachi, the ancient Japanese end-blown flute used on his album Perceive its beauty, Acknowledge its Grace, alongside a variety of other instruments from the flute family.
Outkast rapper André 3000 took a similar journey. His 2023 record New Blue Sun was somewhat lazily dubbed his “flute album.” This deep dive into immersive sonics followed his association with West Coast “space collage” percussionist and connector Carlos Niño, who seemed to predict this shift in the title of his 2016 album: Flutes, Echoes, It’s All Happening!
While such musical reinventions came as a surprise to many, these artists were in fact reaching back into a deep history of the flute being used in jazz. Despite its status as a somewhat overlooked wind instrument, the warm resonance of the flute has echoed through the timeline of jazz—from post-bop and the avant-garde to jazz funk and fusion.
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It was as far back as the 1920s that Cuban-born Alberto Socarrás became the founding father of jazz flute with the recordings he made for the Okeh label with American pianist Clarence Williams at the height of the Harlem Renaissance. During the swing era, Wayman Carver became one of the only flautists to make a name for himself, working with bandleader and drummer Chick Webb and his Orchestra—which featured Ella Fitzgerald. In the post-war era, various jazz musicians picked up the flute as a second instrument after the saxophone—artists like Buddy Collette, a founding member of Chico Hamilton Quintet and Buddy Rich And His Orchestra.
But it was in the mid-‘50s through to the ‘60s that the flute came into its own as a solo jazz instrument. At the front of the pack was Herbie Mann whose two albums for Bethlehem Records in 1955 and ‘56 brought the flute to jazz’s center stage. In the liner notes of the first of those albums, East Coast Jazz / 4, the flautist wrote: “A group that has a flute in it should be a light, swinging, happy-sounding one. Those are the qualities of the instrument. But a great deal of the jazz flute recorded to date is lacking in this respect.”
In the years that followed, Herbie Mann would use the deeper sonics of the flute as part of his musical explorations, from his series of albums for Atlantic in the mid-‘60s that traversed Latin, Brazilian, and Middle Eastern music, to his disco jazz albums of the late ’70s.
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One of those flautists to owe a great debt to Herbie Mann was Bobbi Humphrey, whose albums for Blue Note in the mid ‘70s are amongst the greatest jazz funk records ever made. Born in Marlin, Texas but raised in Dallas, she began playing flute in high school. After being spotted by Dizzy Gillespie, she made the move to New York. There, she was taken into the Blue Note fold by Dr. George Butler, who was steering the label in a new direction.
The 21-year-old flautist and singer announced her arrival at Blue Note with Flute-In from 1971. The album was produced by Butler, but it was her LPs with the Mizell Brothers—Blacks and Blues, Satin Doll and Fancy Dancer—that made her a legend on the jazz funk scene. Arranged and co-produced by Roy Ayers and released on his label Uno Melodic Records, “Baby Don’t You Know” was a lesser-known jazz-funk-boogie crossover single from 1982 that spread out over nine glorious minutes.
Next to Herbie Mann and Bobbi Humphrey, Yusef Lateef is, arguably, the jazz artist most commonly associated with the flute. He began his studies in flute composition at Wayne State University in Detroit while immersing himself in the city’s live jazz scene. This led to his first albums on Savoy Records like 1957’s Jazz Mood, on which he played tenor saxophone as well as flute. In the same year, he released A Prayer to the East, a sign of things to come for this most exploratory of jazz musicians.
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In learning to master the shakuhachi, Hutchings was following in the path of Yusef Lateef, who used a range of different flutes from Eastern cultures in his groundbreaking 1960s recordings for Impulse! Recorded at Ronnie Scott’s London on January 15th, 1966, this 2016 live release on Gearbox Records captured the sonic depth and spiritual power of Yusef Lateef’s flute playing during this pivotal era. A constant innovator. he was one of the most influential flute players in jazz, going on to release a number of books on the instrument through his publishing company Fana Music.
Another flute player who was drawn East was Paul Horn. It was on a series of early ’60s albums with San Francisco Latin jazz vibraphonist Cal Tjader for Verve and Fantasy that Horn’s flute playing came to prominence. Under his own name, he recorded albums that ranged from the modal beauty of Impressions of Cleopatra for Columbia to the choral Jazz Suite On The Mass Texts for RCA Victor.
In 1968, he traveled to India to study at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram at the same time as The Beatles. After recording Paul Horn in India and Paul Horn in Kashmir, he pushed the sonic boundaries of the flute with the album Inside. Recorded on location at the Taj Mahal, it became a foundation record of New Age music that resonates loudly today. Through the mid-’70s, Horn continued to travel across musical borders ranging from the Afro-Cuban jazz album Altura Do Sol to the jazz funk of Visions. Paul Horn also released a number of live albums including this one from Midem in Cannes 1980, released on Bandcamp in 2020—six years after the flautist passed away.
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Of all the saxophonists who doubled up on flute, none mastered the instrument with as much variety in sound and depth of harmonics as Eric Dolphy. While he became known for the razor-edged playing of his alto saxophone on his pioneering modal and post-bop albums for Prestige and Blue Note in the early and mid-‘60s, his flute playing had the pureness and clarity of a classical musician. Originally released on the Prestige sub label New Jazz in 1961, Out There contained “17 West,” a great example of Dolphy’s flute playing. It can be heard as a precursor to his best-known jazz flute recording “Gazzelloni,” (named after classical flautist Severino Gazzelloni who taught Dolphy) from his most famous album Out to Lunch, released on Blue Note in 1965. (Another avant-garde saxophonist who doubled up on flute with great impact was Sam Rivers, whose Bandcamp releases are well worth tracking down.)
“Rahsaan Roland Kirk is an outstanding jazzman, if only for his brilliant flute playing,” wrote Barry McRae in Jazz Journal in 1963. “This year Kirk the flautist was featured copiously and he is playing better than ever. If anything, he has dirtied up his tone.” McRae wrote those words after witnessing an astonishing performance by the multiple instrumentalist at Ronnie Scott’s in London. Known for playing the nose flute alongside the tenor saxophone and two obscure wind instruments, the stritch and the manzello, Roland Kirk wielded his instruments around his neck like weapons. Such was the power of his playing that McRae ended the review by saying: “I walked out into the Soho air convinced that the world was more bearable.”
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But it wasn’t just in America and Europe that the deep vibrations of the flute were being heard in jazz. Born in 1944 in Martinique, Max Cilla set out to revive the bamboo flute as part of his country’s musical tradition. After moving to Paris in 1967, he was invited to perform with Archie Shepp at Chat qui Pêche, going on to become a regular at the Latin Quarter jazz club. Recorded in 1981 for the label Artistes Producteurs Indépendants Associés, La Fl û te Des Mornes Vol.1 was a deep spiritual jazz outing that mixed Latin music with the drum rhythms of his island. Max Cilla would inspire other musicians from Martinque—most notably Eugène Mona, who started out in the late ‘60s with a flute handed down to him by his mentor.
Today’s jazz flute legacy is being upheld by musicians across the world who are similarly reaching into the past to find their own space in the future of jazz. Here are just a few of them.
Tenderlonious
On Flute
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Edward Cawthorne, aka Tenderlonious, debuted with a series of house and broken beat 12-inches on his label 22a back in 2013 as part of a burgeoning South London jazz scene. Released in 2016, the simply titled On Flute found Cawthorne exploring the intersection of jazz, broken beat, deep house, and Afrobeat on an instrument he taught himself how to play. While his signature wild flute solos could be heard throughout The Shakedown, his groundbreaking fusion LP with his 22 A Orchestra, it has been through his project Ruby Rushton that his jazz flute really took flight. Playing both flute and saxophone with one of the tightest groups on the London scene, the three volumes of Trudi’s Songbook brought a 21st-century slant on jazz funk and fusion. Slipping out quietly in the wake of those albums, this four-track EP from 2021 presented Tenderlonious solely on the flute moving between the Latin jazz dance of “The Good Mixer” to the folk-leaning “Fall From Grace.”
Flora Eyster
Riffster Jazz Flute Fun
Flautist and improv poet Flora Eyster studied with trombonist Roswell Rudd as part of New York’s free-music improvisation scene. Taking her cue from Herbie Mann, she has gone on to play over 40 variants of the instrument, including alto, bass and contrabass flutes. A world traveler, she has also amassed a range of bamboo flutes, following in the path of one of her great heroes, Yusef Lateef. Now living in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, Eyster has released a number of albums with drummer Steve Mitchell as part of the Travel In Music series. Dedicated to Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Herbie Mann, and Hubert Laws, this album of world fusion saw her and Mitchell joined by fellow flautist Mary Knysh, who also adds scat vocals, and Andy Seal on upright bass.
Milena Jancuric
Shapes and Stories
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Originally from Novi Sad, Serbia and now living in Bari, Italy, Milena Jancuric has played with various groups both at home and abroad—including saxophonist and vocalist Sanja Markovic. Her deep flute tones can be heard on Markovic’s 2020 album Ascension, recorded for the label A.MA Records. Based in Bari, the prolific label also released Jancuric’s debut under her own name. Featuring a septet of Serbian players, Shapes And Stories ranged from the soaring modal epic “Purple Shoes Steps” to ballads like “Blue Sparrow Dark Eyes,” showing the depth and dexterity of Jancuric’s flute playing. You can also hear her sonorous tones on the track “Heritage” from fellow Bari jazzman Nicola Conte’s album Umoja.
YAI
Sky Time
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Working under the name YAI, “dream jazz abstractionists” David Lackner and John Thayer create atmospheric sound collages that bring to mind the fourth world explorations of Jon Hassell and other artists working at the intersection of jazz and New Age. They do so using tape loops, field recordings, and echoes with a stack of analog keys and a range of woodwind instruments, including the flute. When not working in this laptop jazz duo, Lackner plays flute, alongside Rhodes and synths, on his releases for Brooklyn label GALTTA. Taken from YAI’s September 2024 album Sky Time, the ambient jazz of the title track is built around the translucent flute playing of Lackner and what the duo calls a “clear-eyed exercise of stop motion in slow motion.”
Naïssam Jalal
Healing Rituals
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“It was the Neanderthals who imagined a soundmaking miracle hiding in a cave bear’s leg bone and carved it into the oldest known musical instrument…In the startling flute sound of Naïssam Jalal, its oldest virtues and wildest modern manifestations become one,” wrote John Fordham of The Guardian in his review of Healing Rituals. The new LP by the Paris-raised, Syrian-born flautist and composer came together after Jalal—who had previously worked on everything from hip-hop to improv jazz, tango, and afrobeat—spent time in the hospital and looked to the natural world for her own healing. Drawing from Arabic and Hindustani sources and finding space between modal jazz, chamber music, classical, and improv, Jalal (with Clément Petit on cello, Claude Tchamitchian on double bass, and Zaza Desiderio on drums) proves why jazz flute is much more than the latest thing.
