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John McNeil: More Than Just Notes, Man

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John McNeilTrumpeter John McNeil arrived in New York in the early 1970s and has played with such luminaries as Thad Jones, Mel Lewis, Horace Silver and Gerry Mulligan. He has led his own bands since 1980 and his recordings have garnered worldwide critical acclaim. In addition to his touring schedule, McNeil co-leads a quartet with saxophonist Bill McHenry every Sunday night at Biscuit BBQ (formerly Night and Day) in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. With his eyes frequently brimming with mischief, the quick-witted, good-humored and wonderfully profane composer, producer and author sat down to share his thoughts on his involvement in the upcoming [2007] Festival of New Trumpet Music (FONT) and his opinions and memories from a long career in jazz.

All About Jazz: The first thing I'll ask you about is FONT Music. It seems to be very important to a lot of people. Who decided that there needed to be a festival devoted specifically to the trumpet?

John McNeil: Dave Douglas. He may have had discussions with a couple of other people but basically it was his idea.

AAJ: This is the fifth year for the festival. Was it hard to sell it to club owners and venues and has it gotten any easier since it has gone on?

JM: Oh yeah, it has. I think [New York club] Tonic was the one that signed on first in the first year. But the second year it seemed like nobody wanted to really have it or something and it was all spread out and they had all these weird venues that nobody knew where they were, stuff like that. I think the Vision Festival kind of joined forces with us and helped to promote it a little, but still, it was a drag.



So now it's been around, it's gotten some press and they've gotten some grants and they also achieved nonprofit status. So now they've got more money [and] they've hired a publicist. You get to see trumpet players from all over the world and most often they have two bands per show. So you can go to a show and hear a whole bunch of new stuff you've never heard before.



And now they've expanded over to Brooklyn and I was tasked with doing some booking over here. And [it's] kind of slim pickings for [us to find] a place with a large enough stage to do some of the things. So we're gonna use the Tea Lounge over here. I think it's a great space. It's got a huge stage, relatively speaking. And there's a little joint over on Ninth Street [called] Barbès. That's more of a place where people go to try out music.



And there's been some good music in there, but it's very tiny, you just can't get enough people in there. This place I play down here, Biscuit BBQ, is gonna expand the back room where the music is, adding a good six or seven feet. Probably ten more tables at least and that'll add another twenty or thirty people. Now that would be a hell of a good venue, especially if they solve the acoustic problems, which they're trying to do now.

AAJ: Who determines what acts get to participate? How is that resolved?

JM: Well, I chose the ones for over here [at Tea Lounge]. And Dave Douglas and the guys that sit on the board, people contact them now. Now I don't know how they did it originally. They just called everyone they knew. Dave called me and said, "Look, we're starting this new thing. Do you want to be a part of it? I said absolutely, of course. It was smaller. Now there's a lot more people to keep in contact with.

John AAJ: And how long have you been playing at Biscuit BBQ?

JM: We started in February 2006, so it's been eighteen months. This thing I'm doing with [saxophonist] Bill [McHenry], [is to take] these old vehicles, these old tunes and we basically just play free on them. We keep the form...we drop in and out of the harmony and the bassist [Joe Martin] and drummer [Jochen Rueckert] [are] able to groove along. And what it does, in these kinds of subtle ways, is that it takes it out of an older era and puts it—I don't know where the fuck it puts it, but it ain't back there!



Harmonically, Bill and I are both idea people. That's what makes it work for us... [A]fter about six months or so we [got] into some things where it [was] almost like ESP. We wound up playing the same types of things [and] had a feeling for how long it should go on. That sort of thing is very rewarding and Jochen and Joe, they know our playing by now and they've [begun to] anticipate things that they know that I do.

AAJ: You got to New York in the early 1970s?

JM: I moved here permanently around '74. When I first got to New York I played a lot of free music... Everybody would just play all the time...some of the guys, they'd get high and just keep playing all at once. They didn't really have a feeling of trying to compose something. I didn't dig it, so I would get guys together and we'd just play. Sometimes we used a theme [but] we never played a tune.

AAJ: You played a tune but not a tune in the conventional sense.

JM: Yeah, just like a little thing or some kind of rhythm. I had this one group of guys, we'd get together, we had a clock on the wall [and we'd say] "Okay, let's play a seven-minute tune. Let's play like a twelve-minute tune. So we would put some shape on it.

AAJ: That must've been a good challenge because you had to work within the confines of that block of time and come up with ideas that made sense and were connected.

JM: I always felt that everyone was more creative if there were limits. It seems counterintuitive but it seems like it forced things to happen. It established a common goal, I think maybe that was it. Since we all shared the common goal everything tended to contribute towards that. When I played with Horace Silver it wasn't about free music, it was about you making the changes [without] fucking any of them up. On one chorus maybe he'd let you slide. Two choruses, he'd tell you about it on the break. [He'd say] "A flat minor, flat five, man. You know, I wrote that for a reason. You gotta play it.

John

Now, with these OmniTone records I started playing like a lot more free music and the stuff doesn't really have a lot of changes to it. On the last record I did, East Coast Cool (2004), I knew I had a winner 'cause I'm talking to these guys about it and I said, "Can you walk this line between free music and the music without the restrictions that used to be there? Can you kind of reference that? and [bassist John] Hebert and [drummer Matt] Wilson said, "Yeah, we can do that. I can truly say that even though I ostensibly wrote the music those guys had a big hand in a lot of it and how it went. You've gotta be careful as a leader asking people for advice because some people interpret that as indecisiveness or weakness and you wind up firing them because they no longer respect you as a leader.

AAJ: Out of all the people you played with—the people that mentored you, specifically—who taught you the most?

JM: The guy who gave me the best advice, advice that changed me overnight, was Thad Jones. The first time I played with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Band, [Jones] invited me to sit in and I played a blues or something like that, and then I believe I covered a set for Cecil Bridgewater. So Thad called me over [after the set]. Did you ever see that guy? Thad looked like he could have been a boxer or something, kind of big, imposing guy. Intimidating. And such a great musician in all ways. So he calls me over and he's not pleased. And I'm thinking, "Ohhhh shit. I'm fired. I'll never ever work with this band again. I've been discovered. So he puts his arm around me and says, "You know, you have lots of ideas and I get your drift. But you just throw 'em away. Why do you do that? You never know how many ideas you're gonna have. What if you run out?



He said, "That's the way to communicate. You take an idea, you gotta work with it. You play it again, you turn it around, make a sequence out of it. You have to think like a writer. That's what makes people remember your playing. Otherwise it's just notes, man. And he didn't say anything more. He just walked away. And it was the biggest change I've ever had. I was a different player the next day. Because it wasn't even the skill so much as the way of thinking and I just changed the way I thought and it was different. That conversation was like maybe two minutes [but it] changed everything. The next solo I played he looked back and smiled at me. Oh man, that was the happiest day of my life. That made me a player if I never played another note.


Selected Discography

John McNeil, East Coast Cool (OmniTone, 2004)

John McNeil, Sleep Won't Come (OmniTone, 2004)

John McNeil, This Way Out (OmniTone, 2002)

John McNeil, Fortuity (SteepleChase, 1999)

John McNeil/Tom Harrell, Loook to the Sky (SteepleChase, 1979)

John McNeil, Faun (SteepleChase, 1979)

Photo Credit
Courtesy of John McNeil

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