Comfortable in the Captain’s Chair: Adam Shulman’s SFJAZZ Residency

When Adam Shulman sits at the piano and begins to improvise, the music moves. He may play “Lover” or “What is Thing Called Love” : Standards “are my bread and butter,” he says. But whatever the tune, if you’re in the audience, you will feel the pulse, the swing, the easy flow of ideas.

Over the past 20 years, he has become one of the most ubiquitous pianists on the Bay Area scene. He’s been a regular at SFJAZZ for much of his career. But this month, for the first time, he will have his own four-night residency (Nov. 14-17), leading a different band each night in the club-like Joe Henderson Lab. He’ll start off with an intimate duo program featuring one of his heroes, saxophonist Noel Jewkes. On Night Two, he will lead a sextet, showing off his own compositions and skill as an arranger. On Night Three, Shulman will switch things up, playing the Hammond B-3 organ with a trio. And he’ll conclude the residency with his piano trio, featuring two of his favorite collaborators, bassist John Wiitala and drummer Smith Dobson.

I recently spent an hour on the phone with Shulman, discussing the residency, his San Francisco upbringing, and the many ins and outs of his career. His reverence for jazz was a throughline: “I love being inside the beauty of it.”

He grew up in the city’s Bernal Heights neighborhood and heard jazz on the family record player from an early age. He started on piano at age seven, studying classically. It wasn’t until 1998, as an 18-year-old freshman at the University of California, Santa Cruz, that he became serious about playing jazz. He studied with the late pianist Smith Dobson (father of the drummer), a master player who worked with legends like Bobby Hutcherson, Joe Henderson, and Art Pepper. Dobson set Shulman on the path. Returning to San Francisco in 2002, he found himself on the bandstand — often struggling to keep up, he admits — with Major League musicians like bassist Marcus Shelby and drummers Vince Lateano and Eddie Marshall.

Now, at age 45, with seven albums and countless performances under his belt, Shulman finds himself mentoring a younger generation of players: “The tables have turned,” he says, sounding a little surprised at the thought. He thinks “the culture has changed. When I was coming up, it was a little tougher, and for the generation before that, it was even tougher than that — a tough love vibe. I think it’s become a little softer.” Even so, he finds that “some of these younger players are so good, I don’t know what to tell them!”

He enjoys performing for young audiences, too. At an SFJAZZ Family Matinee on Dec. 7, he and his trio will perform the tunes from Vince Guaraldi’s best-selling 1965 album A Charlie Brown Christmas. Shulman’s Charlie Brown shows have become a kind of Bay Area holiday tradition over the past decade. He finds that kids are “rapt” as the trio plays well-known tunes like “Linus and Lucy,” “Christmas Time is Here,” and “Skating.” From the get-go, he once told me, “They’re just dancing around. With this show, more than any others, I’ve already got them before I play a note. You feel the energy. At a lot of jazz shows, things have to build; maybe the first show goes okay, and then it builds to something better. This isn’t like that. You feel the love throughout the whole thing.”

This year, he’ll have some special guests at the Charlie Brown show. The San Francisco Girls Chorus will perform on four numbers, newly arranged by Shulman. It’s his first time arranging for a chorus: “Yeah, I’m a little nervous,” he says. “But I think it’s going to be good.” This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Q: You recorded a couple of your recent albums on the East Coast — at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in New Jersey where hundreds of classic jazz albums were recorded in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Coltrane recorded A Love Supreme in that room. What was it like for you, being there?

A: It was amazing. Especially the first time, I was just, “Whoa, how is this happening?” And I had all these New York musicians who I look up to so much, and they had the same feeling as me: “Oh, my God.” Some had recorded there before, but some hadn’t. It was a little overwhelming, the things you see there: “Oh, that’s the Bud Powell piano, and there’s the Jimmy Smith organ. There’s the lathe that Rudy cut all the records on.” They have the old microphones. They have Art Taylor’s drum set and it’s got this squeaky high-hat like you hear on the records. It still has that. It’s still squeaky.

It’s a time capsule. But they’ve got modern stuff. too. They record digitally now.

Q: You made a Christmas album last year — We Wish You a Funky Christmas — that puts holiday tunes through a funk-fusion blender. You recorded it at Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco — where Herbie Hancock recorded Head Hunters. Were you aware of that when you booked the date?

A: Oh, for sure. That was the reason to record there. Because that was the concept, to play in the mode of those ‘70s records by Herbie, that electric kind of funk.

When I was first getting into jazz, my gateway was the funk-fusion thing, which is interesting because I don’t play that much anymore. Most of my stuff is in the bebop vein. But that’s what I was first into.

Q: I hear Stevie Wonder’s influence on the record — in your song arrangements and the way you use synthesizers.

A: Definitely. The guy who runs that room is Joe Bagale and that’s his whole vibe. He’s steeped in that world and he has all those instruments, the analog synthesizers, the Wurlitzer, everything.

Q: I know you didn’t get heavily into playing jazz until college. But you grew up hearing it, because your dad was such a fan. What records did he play at home?

A: He loved the Modern Jazz Quartet, so that was always on. And he loves Paul Desmond; Paul Desmond is his favorite. So I heard a lot of Dave Brubeck (whose famous quartet featured Desmond). Those were the two major ones that were playing all the time, but also Oscar Peterson. Sarah Vaughan. Ella. Mel Torme.

Q: Your dad (David Shulman), who’s from New York, used to hang out in Greenwich Village clubs when he was a young guy, right?

A: He went to the Village all the time. He saw the classic Miles (Davis) group with Trane a bunch of times – they’d just be playing and it wasn’t that big of a deal. That’s the sense I have. It was kind of like my dad and his friends were being cool, just hanging out. But it must have been amazing.

It makes me think about going to shows when I was young and not really understanding how special it was. And then later in my life, thinking, “Oh, why didn’t I listen more closely?” But I didn’t have the tools.

Q: I heard an interview where you spoke about seeing a trio led by Gene Harris, the pianist, at the old Yoshi’s when you were a kid. You said the experience blew you away.

A: It was before I played jazz at all and it did have that impact on me, because I think about it to this day. A lot of the nuances went over my head, but you pick up on a vibe. You can just feel it. That’s the beauty of hearing music live, generally, and jazz in particular, I think. Even if you don’t speak the language, you can just feel it. Plus, it’s just the whole experience of going to a jazz club for the first time. I’d never done that before. It was just the vibe in the room and the electricity I felt.

I hear a lot of people talk about jazz these days, saying that it’s off-putting for them. And I never had that. It always felt familiar for me. Even if I didn’t understand it as a language — bop, or even Ellington — it always had that safe feeling. It was accessible and familiar.

Q: Tell me about your shows at SFJAZZ. It’s your first residency, a big deal.

A: It’s a showcase of different bands — a lot of material to put together — and I’m honored to do it. I have a lot of irons in the fire — different sides of me — so I appreciate getting the chance to show them off.

Q: You’ll play duets with Noel Jewkes on your first night (Nov. 14). Noel kind of defines “legendary” when you’re talking about Bay Area saxophonists. What’s your history with him?

A: We’ve played quite a bit over the years – mostly he hires me. I’ve been hearing him forever and have just been a huge admirer. He’s like an encyclopedia of the music and I thought it would be cool to do a night of standards — because he knows every standard every written!

We’ve never played a duo show together, and I’ve got a concept for doing it.

Q: What’s the concept?

A: Do you know Heavy Love, the album by (pianist) Jimmy Rowles and (saxophonist) Al Cohn? What I like about it is that they’re really in the tradition, playing in sort of a swing-to-bop style, but it’s also open and free and loose. It’s not like they’re reproducing Teddy Wilson. It’s not calcified. It’s open and vibrant. And that’s what I want — not to do the same tunes they do, the same standards, but to take that approach.

Q: On your second night (Nov. 15), you’ll lead a sextet with some of the Bay Area’s top players: trumpeter Mike Olmos, saxophonist Patrick Wolff. You’ve made a bunch of sextet albums, going back nearly a decade. What will the repertory be this time?

A: It’ll be a mixture of everything – a “best of,” plus some new stuff. I have four new tunes. So, it’ll be mixed and matched from the sextet albums I’ve done, picking my favorites and also having a nice flow to the set.

Q: Why are you so drawn to sextets, as opposed to, say, quartets or quintets? Do they challenge you more as an arranger?

A: I definitely feel like I can use my arrangement chops. I enjoy writing for ensembles, thinking of the sextet as a sort of a small orchestra. As a piano player, oftentimes you’re thinking vertically: chord, chord, chord. But when you’re working with horns, you have to think about the horizontal line and all the voices working together. I like the three-horn thing. To me, it’s the least amount you need to come up with interesting chord voicings. I feel that when you get more than that, you’re sort of splitting the band into sections… But with a sextet, you can treat the horns as sort of one voice. And then there’s the tradition of sextets, too: Art Blakey and Horace Silver. There’s that lineage there. So you draw from that — or you copy!

Q: You’re switching things up on the third night, leading your organ trio (Nov. 16). When did you get into the B-3?

A: I’ve been playing for a while now. It’s my second instrument, for sure, but it’s been probably 15 years or so. And nowadays my gigs are probably 60 percent piano, and 40 percent organ.

Q: How’d you get into the B-3?

A: Wil Blades (the organist, formerly based in Berkeley) is a good friend of mine. He also likes to play drums, so I’d go over to his house and play organ and he’d play drums and he’d show me stuff. That was the beginning of it.

Q: And this organ trio you’re bringing to SFJAZZ?

A: I’ve been playing with (guitarist) Jack Riordan forever. When I first moved to the city, he was one of the first people I played with, so we just have a really strong musical rapport. Mark Ferber, who’s a great drummer, lives in LA and we’ve played only a couple of times. But Jack plays with him all the time and he strongly recommended him for this band, and I’m definitely happy about Jack’s recommendation.

We’ll be doing standards – that’s my bread and butter, playing over standards. So that’s what it’ll be, rather than the soul jazz thing. Standards are kind of where I live.

Q: How about your last night (Nov. 17), when you’ll have your piano trio? I think of the piano trio as your bread and butter, too.

A: I’m excited about all four shows, but I’m sort of most excited about the trio. I’ve been working with this group quite a bit this past year, and it’s just got some of my longest musical associations, with (bassist) John Wiitala and (drummer) Smith Dobson. I’ve known Smith since I was in Santa Cruz as a student and I studied with his dad, who was the most formative teacher that I’ve ever had. It’s just been really cool to develop the sound of that trio; we have a thing. It’s empathetic. Those guys listen so carefully, and — just like Noel — they come from such a deep place in terms of the history of the music. Smith, who’s a little older than me, grew up in a household filled with jazz; it’s running through his veins. And John, he has like every record ever made, and he’s had most of them on vinyl. He’s a walking encyclopedia, to use that phrase again.

Q: Smith Dobson Sr. — the pianist, your teacher — was a force on the Bay Area scene for many years. Given your training with him, do you feel a special musical connection to Smith Jr.?

A: We have a unique relationship, for sure, because I’ve known his family for a really long time, and we can talk about his dad. The roots of our musical relationship go so far back. We don’t play together all the time. But there is something there that is special, because we kind of came up together as musicians and we share that history.

Q: What was it like to study with Smith Dobson? Describe a typical lesson.

A: It was more like a mentorship. He could tell I was serious and I just became a sponge. I’d go there for supposedly an hour lesson and I’d wind up hanging out all afternoon. And he’d show me a bunch of stuff at the piano and he’d play me a bunch of records. I remember he turned me on to a lot of organ stuff: “Oh, you have to listen to Jack McDuff and Groove Holmes.” I remember that. And we’d work on a tune and he’d play me versions by different people, and I still do that. If I’m learning a tune, I learn it in different keys and learn how different people did it. You don’t just pop open the Real Book and play it.

With Smith, I’d listen to him play and copy it, or ask, “Oh, what are you doing there?” I guess it was that old mentorship style, passing on the oral tradition. It wasn’t so much, “Use this scale.” It was more like he would demonstrate, and I’d copy.

Q: You came up under lots of great Bay Area musicians. Can you pick two of them and tell me what it felt like to be on the bandstand with them? What did you specifically learn?

A: I used to do this jam session at a place called the Octavia Lounge on Market Street. (Bassist) Glenn Richman hired me to be in the house band and it was him and Eddie Marshall. And I was just green, green, green, a young guy. And I learned a ton, because we’d play the first set with the trio and then guests would come and sit in. And one of the things they taught me was — this came up because I was so deferential. So they told me, “Listen, if you’re the piano player, you’re in the captain’s seat. We’re looking to you. You have to learn some intros, you have to learn some outros.”

And I grew a lot, but it was nerve-wracking — being in the captain’s chair with you guys? But they were very kind, especially Eddie. He was very laid back. Glenn was a little more, “You gotta do this, you gotta do that.” Which is good. I needed it. That was very formative for me in terms of learning the role of the pianist in the piano trio. You’re not a dictator, but you have to be assertive as the captain of the rhythm section.

Q: Have the tables turned? Twenty years later, do you find yourself mentoring up-and-comers?

A: Absolutely. I run a jam session every Sunday at the Madrone Art Bar where I play organ, and it’s a bunch of young players. I’m definitely not as hands-on as some of those cats I came up with; as a rule, I’m not hiring these young musicians. But I do feel like the tables have turned, because I’m the one who says, “Hey you should work on this.”

I was in New York recently, and I got this sense of, “Oh, man there’s this whole tradition of this music.” You want to keep it alive and protect it. You see young musicians who are into it and you want to encourage it.

Q: Tell me about one young musician who’s impressed you lately.

A: Patrick Wolff teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory and he met this drummer there, Miles Turk, and I’ve been playing with him. His dad was the music director at Glide Memorial Church.

Q: John Turk, a famous guy.

A: Right. And Miles is a really good drummer. He came up playing gospel drums, but he’s really into jazz and he’s really absorbing it. I feel like Patrick and I are both kind of guiding him a little, because we all play once a month at the Dawn Club. It’s Patrick’s gig, and Miles asks a lot of questions. That’s another thing about the jazz pedagogy — that you learn on the bandstand. There are these subtle things that you just kind of get when you’re playing with someone who’s more seasoned than you: “Oh, that’s it! I get it.” I came up through that, and now it’s cool to be on the other side of it. There’s a big crop of good jazz drummers coming up, and Miles is one of them, but he kind of sticks out in my mind.

Q: I watched a short documentary about your sextet album Just the Contrafacts, which you recorded at the Van Gelder Studio in 2021. A bunch of heavy New York players are on that album. (Among them are trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, tenor saxophonist Grant Stewart, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Billy Drummond.)

In the documentary, you say that the experience of playing and recording in New York “opened up a different world for me, musically.” Over the years, have you thought about moving to New York?

A: It was my plan for a long time when I was in college. I had this idea that I would move to New York at some point.

But then I broke into the scene in San Francisco, and I had a lot to learn when I was fresh out of college, and those early years in San Francisco were really important to me musically. First of all, I would practice more than I’d ever practiced before. I’d go out to the old Conservatory on 19th Avenue and sneak in there and practice six or seven hours a day. And I’d moved back home with my parents and was trying to learn as much as I could. Then I started going to jam sessions and that’s where I met Marcus (Shelby), and he hired me. So, I was getting into the scene here and it was always in the back of my mind that I’d move to New York, but it just never materialized. I got more settled here and sank roots. And now – there’s no way! I’ve heard it said that “New York is for the super-rich and the young.” That’s what it has become. I think it’s very hard to be a musician there; well, it’s hard here, too.

Another thing is, my girlfriend (singer-songwriter Katy Stephan) is pretty set up here. It’d be just too difficult to leave now. But I do love to visit and I’ve made connections with musicians there.

Q: Who, in particular?

A: Grant Stewart is a friend and (guitarist) Ed Cherry is another guy I’ve played a bunch with. I met him through Paula West. Also, (drummer) Jerome Jennings; I met him through Paula, too. And (saxophonist) Cory Weeds, he lives in Vancouver, but he’s in New York all the time. So I have these connections. When you know a few of those guys, it opens up that world, which is kind of amazing to me. “Wow, I get to play with Peter Washington!” Really?

Q: For Contrafacts, you wrote new melodies to fit the chord changes of pre-existing songs. (That’s what a contrafact is: a composition that uses the harmonies of a song that already exists). It seems like that was a technical exercise for you — creating enough of these contrafacts to make an album. Is that typical of the way you approach new projects?

A: It’s not usually a technical challenge. That one definitely came out of the pandemic; I was just sort of sitting at home. I didn’t have an album in mind, so at first it was just an exercise. I was just writing stuff — new melodies that would work over the changes to standards.

But I do work better when I have some sort of framework, when it’s not just a wide-open canvas, when there’s some sort of parameter. It might be, “Write a piece about this,” or I guess it could be a technical thing. But something; that always helps me.

Q: Your West Meets East album (from 2019, and also recorded at Van Gelder Studio) has a West Coast cool jazz feel to it, like chamber jazz, with all these beautiful solos that are kind of slippery and muted. It bears the mark of Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool — or of Desmond and Brubeck. Do you ever think your dad’s record collection has sub-consciously influenced your own music?

A: I’m sure it does subconsciously. Your early years – they’re called “the formative years” for a reason. Those experiences echo through your life. So it’s there. Those early experiences as a kid — they made jazz feel accessible to me… But my own music is more informed by the years after that, developing my voice and listening.

Q: You’ve worked with some wonderful singers: Paula West, Ed Reed, Kenny Washington, and your girlfriend Katy Stephan. It’s been a constant in your professional life.

A: Absolutely.

Q: How does that feed you? What do you get out of working with singers?

A: Early on, as a new jazz musician coming to the city — or even before that, playing with vocalists in college — I saw that singers get a lot of gigs. That was part of the attraction: “Okay, I’ll do some gigs with this singer.” But I think I just kept getting better at it and I really enjoy the aspect that I’m providing. It’s a unique interaction in that they’re driving the bus.

Q: You’re not the captain.

A: Right. But as the orchestra behind them, you’re responsible for a lot. Taking on that role, that unique interaction was appealing to me. I just felt my way into it and I enjoy it. And every vocalist is different in terms of what they bring to the table and what they need. With some vocalists, it’s very interactive and they want you to bring a lot. With others, they just want a nice cushy pillow to sing over. But I just like to serve the music, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes. I think it’s what makes me a good accompanist. Some musicians are more like, “Well, this is how I play; deal with it. If you like it, hire me. If you don’t, don’t.”

I’m not like that. I’m happy to do what’s needed.

The other thing I like is that they’re telling actual stories with words to people, and that’s an aspect of music I don’t usually experience as a piano player. You can feel it when you’re at a show and you’re working with a great vocalist who’s connecting with the audience. You can’t get that in other realms; I enjoy riding on their coattails.

Adam Shulman performs a four night residency in the Joe Henderson Lab, 11/14-17. Tickets and more information are available here. Shulman performs a Family Matinee trio performance of Vince Guaraldi's music from A Charlie Brown Christmas with special guests on 12/7. Tickets and more information available here. 

A staff writer at SFJAZZ, Richard Scheinin is a lifelong journalist. He was the San Jose Mercury News' classical music and jazz critic for more than a decade and has profiled scores of public figures, from Ike Turner to Tony La Russa and the Dalai Lama.