In the April 2024 issue of Jersey Jazz, drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr. told me he had recently taken four young musicians with him for a tour in Tokyo. One of them was saxophonist Langston Hughes II, then studying for his master’s degree at Juilliard. Hughes, said Owens, is “burning up the scene.”
The 24-year-old Hughes vividly remembers that experience. “It was my first trip out of the country. The culture and the respect they have for jazz in Japan is really cool. I learned so much from that trip, being out there and being part of the band. It was one of the first gigs I had with Ulysses and that group. Ulysses does a really great job of capturing the essence that so many jazz musicians we all look up to have had in terms of mentorships and mentees. He kind of took me in, and every day he would be giving us advice, letting us hear his experiences with people like Mulgrew Miller and Christian McBride.”
The other young artists on the trip were trumpeter Anthony Hervey, pianist Tyler Bullock, and bassist Thomas Milovac. (Hervey and Bullock are previous Jersey Jazz Rising Stars, 4/22 and 2/24, respectively).
Growing up in Prince Georges County, MD, near Washington, DC, Hughes’ early exposure to music was through the Black church. “The church,” he said, “gave me my real recognition of music. Folks would go to church, not only to learn about God, but also to listen to the music. Early on, I recognized the power of the music, whether it was an organist or a pianist. The music could completely shift the atmosphere of the room. I recognized that musicians seemed like they had super powers. Their role in the church played such a central part of the experience that it made me appreciate it.”
Hughes began playing the saxophone in the fourth grade. “They simply asked us if we wanted to do band or art. I picked band, and they put an array of instruments in front of us. I picked saxophone because I thought it looked cool.” He played in his middle and high school jazz bands and majored in Jazz Studies at Howard University where he was mentored by saxophonist Charlie Young and pianist Cyrus Chestnut.
“Professor Charlie Young,” he said, “was probably my biggest influence. He had love for music and love for people, and now I realize he’s the reason I’m still studying music. I wish more people knew about him. He’s really low-key, but he’s one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met and has played such a big role in my life.”
Hughes and Young met when Hughes was in high school. “He came to my house and played for me,” Young remembered. “He was a local hero in his high school, but I told him some things no one had articulated to him. A couple of years later when he was at Howard, he remembered me. At Howard, he would play one note, and it sounded different from the other students I had. He practiced like crazy, and he started working gigs. He’s deserving of everything that has come his way.”
In the 2021-22 school year at Howard, Hughes was named an Artist in Residence at Strathmore, a Bethesda, MD-based nonprofit helping people in DC and Maryland connect with arts and artists. In 2022 Hughes was selected as a participant in the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Residency at the John F. Kennedy Center.
“Strathmore,” Hughes said, “takes six emerging artists, and throughout the year they give you a budget to put on a couple of shows. At the time, I was a freshman and sophomore at Howard. It was one of the first times that people gave me money to put on a show.”
The Betty Carter Jazz Ahead residency takes 14 music students each year. The program, Hughes said, “was incredible.” While there, he began to think about coming to New York. “I realized that about 10 of the 14 people there were living in New York. They were either students at or graduates of Juilliard or the Manhattan School of Music.” He was particularly impressed by “the level they were on and how they all kind of knew each other before they even came to the program. For me, it was kind of , ‘ok, this is clearly where things are happening’.”
One of the instructors at the residency was trumpeter Marcus Printup, a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. “He was really helpful to me,” Hughes recalled. “He kind of took me under his wing, pulled me aside, talked to me, and made sure I was doing all right.”
Printup, emphasizing that, “I never choose favorites when I teach because each student is equally important to me,” added that, “there was something about Langston, something about his sound and his level of intent that was so soulful and sincere. I did go check on him because I could see that he was, just like most of the others, nervous and unsure of himself. I’m so happy and thrilled to see the leaps and bounds he’s made since that moment.
“The entire faculty,” Printup continued, “had one hour each morning to play some of their favorite recordings and share how these recordings touched them. I suggested that the students do this as well, with one or two recordings. When it was Langston’s turn to present, he chose a solo by Sherman Irby, who plays lead alto saxophone in the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. It was on the Lou Donaldson classic, ‘Blues Walk’. I remember Langston saying that Sherman ‘s solo changed his life and was a great motivator for him.” (Irby attended the Betty Carter residency in 1995, and Printup was in the inaugural 1993 class).
As a senior at Howard, Hughes knew he wanted to move to New York after graduation. “I started exploring different options,” he said, “and I reached out to Bruce Williams who’s a saxophone teacher at Juilliard. I knew he was from the DC area, and I knew he grew up in a similar way as me. I sent him some videos of me playing, and we just chatted. Then, I realized that Juilliard was an option. Bruce is a giant mentor of mine.”
Williams remembered that his initial meetings with Hughes “were fruitful, and I encouraged him about his goals and the potential audition process at Juilliard. I’m from Washington, DC, and was raised there and in very nearby Silver Spring, MD. I knew how he developed and his influences. I told him to strengthen his understanding of playing changes, bebop, and straight-ahead jazz because in the DC, Maryland, Virginia area there is a heavy smooth jazz and R&B influence over many younger players. Those skills weren’t what was needed to deal with Juilliard Jazz. Langston worked on what I showed him, and it was a successful audition. He has a great sound and is lyrical.”
Once Hughes had been accepted to Juilliard, he also got some advice from Cyrus Chestnut, one of his Howard teachers. “He told me, ‘One of the main things you want to do when you get there is, not only to study at school, but you need to study with someone out of school and be that mentee for someone. Get in someone’s band.’ So, I was really grateful that Ulysses, early on, allowed me to develop that relationship with him. Folks like Betty Carter and Art Blakey made it a point to hire young people in their bands. You need one of those mentors, a situation you don’t get in school.”
Hughes also got to play with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, thanks to some help from Printup, who had sent a recording of Hughes’ “Blues Walk” performance at the Betty Carter residency to Sherman Irby. Irby’s response: “That boy can play! He has a sound!” From that moment on, said Printup, “I knew I had to get Langston into the JALCO to sit beside Sherman and learn from him. The opportunity arose, and we had Langston tour with us. He did a wonderful job, and we’re so proud of him. Langston is one of those players where you can see right through his soul by the sound that comes out of his horn.”
Touring with JALCO, Hughes said, “was a huge thing, a chance to play with heroes of mine. That whole band was, for me, fictional characters at one point, so to get a chance to play with them and sit on the bus with them — it was, seriously, a life-changing thing.”
Hughes received his master’s degree from Juilliard in May 2025. He now has his own quartet, “morphing into a quintet,” he said, with the addition of guitarist Robert Papacica. “I really like that configuration,” he said. The other members of his working band are pianist William Hill III, bassist Eytan Schillinger-Hyman, and a rotating drum seat, usually filled by Quincy Phillips or Devron Dennis. The group will be appearing this month at the Keystone Korner and Hemingway Room in Baltimore and Chris’ Jazz Cafe in Philadelphia. “We do shows at Blues Alley in DC pretty often,” Hughes said, “and we’ll be at Smalls in New York toward the end of April.”
Alto saxophone is Hughes’ main instrument, but “when I was at Howard, I started playing flute, so flute is probably my main double. At Juilliard, I picked up clarinet. So, now I sub a lot on some Broadway shows. Just seeing the row of saxophonists at JALCO with all those other instruments in front of them, I said, ‘OK, this is what I need to do’.” Williams said he and Hughes have played a couple of big band gigs together “where he’s done exceptionally well — a capable doubler and section mate.”
Hughes’ saxophone heroes from the past? “Cannonball and Johnny Hodges, and I also take a lot of inspiration from Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins.” In addition to Williams and Irby, some other current alto players he’s influenced by are Mark Gross, Antonio Hart, and Wessell “Warmdaddy” Anderson.
And, finally there’s his name, Langston Hughes II. “I’m not related, that I know of, to the poet and writer, Langston Hughes. I was named after my dad. I am really grateful for that because, realistically, people don’t forget my name.”-SANFORD JOSEPHSON
PHOTO BY MARGHERITA ANDREANI