(Billy Calzada/Express-News)
Jazz trumpeter Cecil Carter is also an adjunct professor in the jazz studies program at St. Mary's University.
 

The man with the dark sport jacket and the salt-and-pepper hair looks like he'd be right at home in a classroom. When a colleague calls him "The Professor," it certainly fits.

However, when "The Professor" picks up a trumpet, a red trumpet, and easily blows tunes including "Witchcraft" and Louis Jordan's "Early in the Morning," he reminds exactly no one in the room of any stereotypical academic or Jerry Lewis character.

Instead, on a night at Luna, a classy and classic nightclub, "The Professor," Cecil Carter, blows hot and cool trumpet with the Bett Butler/Joel Dilley Quartet. But he's also a professor, an adjunct professor in the jazz studies program at St. Mary's University.

"Cecil has a wealth of information that comes from a variety of sources," said John Rankin, the director of the jazz studies program at St. Mary's and a fellow trumpeter. "Cecil is street-wise, and he has tremendous arranging and writing skills."

And Cecil Carter is almost never still.

"My father was in the Air Force and I was born in Sioux Falls, S.D. There weren't any blacks there before we got there," he said with a slight chuckle as he picked at take-out food from Popeyes and paced around his multipurpose studio, office and apartment. "Great people live there, though."

Carter graduated from Dunbar High School in Fort Worth. He didn't make his parents happy when he turned down track scholarships to Texas Southern University and Oklahoma Baptist University.

"My parents both went to Texas Southern. My dad wanted me to go to Texas Southern or to Grambling," Carter said. "I was fast. I ran the 100-yard dash and the 220-yard dash. I ran a 9.8 hundred when I was in the ninth grade. That might still be in a record book somewhere. I played football, I ran track and I was in the marching band, but I was into music. Our band director, Charles Scott, sometimes played for Ray Charles. He loved that music but he also introduced us to classical music."

A friend, Ed Guinn, sold Carter on the idea of going to the University of Texas at Austin.

"Edward was a year ahead of me in school," Carter said. "I was interested in piano but I only knew one chord. He had a piano at his house and we'd go over there and wear that piano out. He said I had to go to Texas."

So Carter applied — late — but gained admittance to UT.

"In '63 there were about 16 blacks in the whole school," Carter said, "two in music, two in pre-med and the rest in engineering, I believe. When I got to UT I found a lot of white people knew more about jazz than I did. And, during those days, I couldn't go to a lot of the restaurants. It was my white colleagues that showed me what was going on. At that time they still had 'colored' on the wall for drinking fountains. I never drank out of them anyway. I thought there might be something wrong with the 'colored' water. That was a time of awakening for people as a whole."

Carter briefly ran track at UT.

"I was the first black to integrate the track team, which doesn't mean anything to me," Carter said. "I would have been pretty good, but I probably would have quit music. I ended up joining the Brothers Octet, with James Polk, a group that got the job of backing up all the jazz and R&B stars that came to Austin."

Guinn, the catalyst for Carter's UT attendance, also was a pioneer on several fronts. The first African American in the Longhorn Band, Guinn went on to make psychedelic music history with the Conqueroo, established a first-class recording studio in Austin and now is neck-deep in software with Majec Systems in Austin. Guinn also is a long-running master of ceremonies at the Texas Folklife Festival.

"I had lost track of Cecil and then, one year at Folklife, he was playing keyboards with an Army band, Corazon, I think," Guinn said. "It's strange to even think about it now but I had this distorted fantasy that a lot of guys I hadn't seen since high school had been killed in Vietnam. I was very happy to see that Cecil made it. I remember we'd hang out listening to records, lots of old jazz stuff, just being stupid, happy teenagers. Thank God for that."

After a couple of years at UT, Carter did get drafted but wound up not in Vietnam but in Atlanta, where he was part of the 3rd Army Soldier Show, a revue that showcased the talents of troops. The Army took Carter to Germany, where he mustered out and married a German woman. Carter and his wife then headed to Houston

"There was a 10-year period where I did no music at all," he said. "I studied psychology, bought a house and was a big-ticket salesman for Sears, where I sold refrigerators, microwaves, freezers. Then my wife was killed returning home from visiting her parents in Germany. She was in New York. A truck broadsided her taxi. I lived through that but I didn't have any impetus to do anything. Then, during Jazz Week in Houston, some friends literally dragged me out of the house and dragged me to the last jazz event of the week. That woke me up."

One day, while trying to get out of a rainstorm, Carter sought refuge in the office of a U.S. Army recruiter. It didn't take long for him to re-enlist, at the age of 34. This time the Army stationed Carter at Fort Sam Houston with the 5th Army Band. That's where he stayed until he retired in '95. Even while in the Army, Carter was an integral part of the city's jazz fabric, working with Bellwether, the Regency Jazz Band and with dozens of other groups.

"Above all, Cecil is a very fine musician," said Regency bassist and bandleader George Prado. "He has so many of the great qualities, talent, of course, tenacity and he works at it. His trumpet playing has grown steadily since he got out of the service. He's also very dedicated to education. You keep the basics around you at all times and it helps you understand other things. He's also a consummate student."

A conversation with Carter is peppered with references to musicians, giants such as Miles Davis, Bill Evans and Ray Charles, but the conversation invariably turns to learning.

"My advice to musicians is to never let them see you sweat, be obsessive with the focus and learn to listen to music in a proactive way," he said. "I felt the more I knew about music the less fun it would be. But I realized when it evolves to that point, so will you. Ask, 'What's going on?' 'What's happening harmonically?' You have to keep studying."

"I think Cecil is a brilliant musician," said pianist, composer and vocalist Bett Butler, a regular Carter collaborator. "He plays in a very emotional way and I know people connect with that. He has a tremendous ear. He listens and reacts to everything you do. You end up with a wonderful conversation on the bandstand."

In a 1995 Express-News column, Maury Maverick Jr. touted Carter's talent and let the academic world know the trumpeter would make an excellent professor. When Maverick passed away in 2003, Carter played "Toot Toot Tootsie" at Maverick's funeral.

"I still thank Mr. Maverick for that column," Carter said. "I never had a desire to teach music. When I retired, it wasn't on my list."

Bassist Joel Dilley is another musician who works regularly with Carter at places such as Swig and Luna. Carter helped produce Dilley's latest CD, "The Window."

"Cecil doesn't have a pre-conceived agenda," Dilley said. "He reacts to the music. He's a very giving human being. That's always there in the music. He's always ready and willing to help young musicians. They're not only his students; he's their friend. They trust him. He doesn't pull rank. How did he ever make it in the Army?"

But Carter did make it in the Army and does make it as a performer and an educator.

"He has a real East Coast be-bop flavor but also a unique lyrical style," Rankin said. "His music is introspective and well thought out, but also capable of humor and angst. And what helps me brag about him is he knows the history. So much of our vernacular counts on us knowing about what came before."

A Cecil Carter CD with Dilley and Butler is in the works. Resting on laurels isn't.

"I don't rest a lot," Carter added, pacing some more. "I haven't had a vacation in I don't know how long. I guess every day is a vacation. I don't know how to take it easy."

Cecil Carter is still running, but with a trumpet, a red trumpet, instead of track spikes.

jbeal@express-news.net