It's three days before he's leaving for Africa as a cultural ambassador for the city of Wilmington, Del., and Donaldson T.L. Byrd says he feels like a human pin cushion.

"I had to get so many shots. Some of them aren't even available in Delaware. I had to go to New York," he grumbles. "One of my students is going to Australia this summer, and we looked at the list. Man, he didn't need any of the shots I had to get."

And, then, there's that little performance Byrd has to squeeze in before he leaves the country-the one at the White House.

"I'm not sure I have time for this," he says, "I still have to pack. But, at least we'll be playing for a president who knows music. I've heard him play his saxophone. He's pretty good.

"Nah, we won't practice. Won't have time. We'll probably do a sound check though. I'll be playing with guys I've played with for years. It's an all-star band.

"Nah, I'm not taking my wife or kids or grandkids to the White House. They're all too busy for that. It's no big deal to them."

Such is life when you're a legend in the world of jazz.

Byrd, the innovative jazz educator and famed jazz trumpeter with a discography a mile long, was on campus this spring teaching a popular course in music history. He is offering it again this fall.

Sitting at a table in the offices of the Black American Studies Program, he looks decidedly nonlegendary, wearing a baseball cap, untucked cotton print shirt, khakis and work boots.

"I don't want anyone taking my course and thinking they're gonna get some sort of disc jockey class," he says with disdain. "This isn't entertainment. It's all about the sociology of music. There's no way you can understand a thing about jazz music unless you know about the people who wrote it and the times they lived in.

"We take about six of America's greatest musicians, like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, and then we talk about history. You have to know what these people went through to arrive where they did."

Since Byrd knew and played with many of the jazz greats that his class studies, he says, "I tell 'em to read the book and then listen to me for the REAL story!"

Which is not to say the class is in any way autobiographical.

"I don't talk about myself in class," Byrd says. "Most of the students know who I am, and, if they don't, they come across my name when they do research on the artists we study. The only time I talk about myself is if it will help give them insights into the real facts and figures."

Still, there are those special occasions, when Byrd just can't help himself, and his personality and the class combine to have some fun-like the day they celebrated Duke Ellington's 100th birthday with an impromptu concert that drew a large audience outside the Trabant University Center.

Depending on which jazz columnist you read, Byrd, who has eight gold records-four as a producer and four as a recording artist-is either an extraordinary jazz innovator or someone who once stepped too far outside the lines and betrayed his jazz roots.

A web site put together by a fan from Sweden says Byrd may be "jazz's ultimate loose cannon."

In the '50s and early '60s, he had a reputation as one of the best hard boppers of his generation, known for his solid clean tones and lyrical improvisations. In the late '60s and '70s, however, he turned to funky, pop-oriented albums that led to controversy in the music world. One critic writes that at this time Byrd's "horn was subjugated by disco-filed vocals and string sections." Another writes that Byrd was "just doing what nearly all the other jazzmen of the era were doing: going along to get along," while a fan enthuses that Byrd was "one of the first and BEST experimenters in jazz-funk and fusion in the early '70s."

But, no matter what sounds he is producing, Byrd remains one of the most highly educated jazz musicians of all time.

Born in Detroit in 1932, Byrd says his love of jazz dates back to his youth. He credits his father, a Methodist preacher, for never discouraging him from a career that was, at times, at odds with the music the Byrd children were allowed to hear.

Byrd says he saw the city's black history unfold firsthand.

"I was the only boy in the family, and any time there was a race riot or problem in the city, my father would take me out with him. It was his duty to go out to the people. He was a city leader."

Byrd studied music at Wayne State University in the early '50s but was drafted, and military service interrupted his career. He played in the Air Force Band until his time in the service ended and then enrolled in the Manhattan School of Music, where he earned a master's degree in music education.

In the late '50s, he served as a main studio musician for Prestige Records, playing backup trumpet there and at many other studios. He played with such jazz greats as Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Max Roach and John Coltrane, with whom he made 14 albums. He also led a jazz group with Pepper Adams.

In 1962 and 1963, he studied music composition in Paris, returning to the U.S. to teach at Hampton Institute and Rutgers, Howard, North Carolina Central and Delaware State universities.

In the '70s, his music changed direction, and he gained commercial success with the 12-member group Electric Byrd. The band's album, Black Byrd, was Blue Note Records' largest-selling album of 1973.

In the early '80s, he earned a law degree from Howard University and a doctorate in education from Columbia University. He was appointed chairperson of the Department of Music at Howard and helped turn an unknown student ensemble into a tremendously successful pop-fusion group, known as the Blackbyrds.

He continued to record in the pop-fusion vein in the '80s, and, in the '90s, he developed cutting-edge jazz with hip-hop artist Guru.

Byrd continues to produce music and has developed an innovative curriculum that combines the teaching of music and math, called Math + Music = Art, which has been extremely successful in public school systems in New York City, St. Louis and Detroit. At this point in his life, he says he enjoys teaching and playing equally and is hoping to gather a collection of lectures and essays into a book.

His latest group, The New Blackbyrds, recently performed at Delaware State University at the opening of an exhibit of African art that Byrd has collected over the years. He also is part of an effort to open a jazz hall in Wilmington.

In 1998, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation presented him the Living Legacy Jazz Award, which recognizes a jazz master. The group called him "one of the most influential figures in jazz for the past four decades," lauded his composing and arranging skills and hailed him as "the most lyrical of his generation of jazzmen."

In a January 1999 editorial, The Wilmington News Journal praised Byrd's contribution to the culture of Delaware and the nation and called him a "trumpeter of distinction."

-Beth Thomas