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Stephen McQuarry

Steve is a composer/keyboardist, leader of the Resonance Jazz ensemble(octet) and owner of Mandala Records.

About Me

Keyboardist/composer Steve McQuarry describes himself as a perpetual student, but his music offers an advanced education in gracefully melding disparate musical traditions. Focusing on his original compositions and arrangements, McQuarry’s melodious octet Resonance combines jazz’s improvisational imperative with the finely calibrated acoustic dynamics of chamber music and the frisson of contemporary classical experimentation.

Always looking for new information, McQuarry has gleaned ideas from some of the 20th century’s most influential artists, from bebop trumpet legends Dizzy Gillespie and Red Rodney to composer/arranger Clare Fischer and fearless sonic explorers John Cage and Laurie Anderson. Since settling in the Bay Area in the mid-90s, he’s led at least half a dozen different bands, including the jazz combos Pangaea and Zazen, the electronica group Synsor, and the meditation-enhancing ensemble Agharta. But lately he’s channeled many of his musical passions into Resonance, turning the singular ensemble into a vehicle for his ambitious stylistic fusion.

“I had to cut back, and Resonance was the most logical place to concentrate,” McQuarry says. “With all the instruments of a micro orchestra—strings, woodwinds, percussion—it connects everything I do in one place: composing, arranging, and orchestrating.”

The concept for Resonance started to emerge around 2005, when McQuarry was honing an octet arrangement of the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” featuring six horns. While mulling over his frustration with the dominating volume of the brass, a former mentor at Boston’s Berklee College of Music suggested that McQuarry replace most of the horns with strings. He was smitten with the resulting sound, and continued to refine the concept over several years as various string players circulated through the project.

“The original version of Resonance was a string quartet, double bass, and soprano saxophone,” McQuarry says. “But the band changed because I kept losing violinists. On another project I was doing some orchestration work with woodwinds and strings, and it dawned on me that by adding flute to Resonance I was working in the same territory as the flute and string trios that Mozart wrote. I decided to keep the group as an octet.”

The current incarnation of Resonance features an impressive cast of conservatory-trained players who are also well versed in jazz and improvisation. Cellist Nancy Bien is a member of the Berkeley Symphony, assistant principle cellist of the Marin Symphony, and principle cellist for the Berkeley Left Edge Opera (formerly Berkeley Opera). Laura Austin Wiley, who has recorded two jazz albums under her own name and plays in several Bay Area orchestras, contributes to Resonance on piccolo, C-flute, alto flute, and vocals.

With credits that include gigs with Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson, tenor sax great Joe Lovano, salsa star Gloria Estefan, and new music legend John Cage, the versatile Swiss-born violinist Michele Walther performs in symphony orchestras and small groups focusing on classical, jazz, world music, and tango. Georgianna Krieger is equally accomplished on soprano, alto, and baritone saxophones, and violist Michelle Mastin is active with the classical/pop string combo Altair Trio, the St. Peter’s Chamber Orchestra, and the California Pops Orchestra. The highly accomplished rhythm section tandem of drummer Greg German and bassist Ted Burik rounds out Resonance.

While no group could encompass every twist and turn on McQuarry’s musical journey, Resonance reflects his wide-ranging curiosity. In a career stretching over three decades, he is that rarest of creative animals, a hybrid fox and hedgehog. Like the animals in Isaiah Berlin’s famous dictum, he’s foxlike in gathering knowledge from many musical fields, while his hedgehog aesthetic is shaped by knowing one big thing, that all sounds are fair game for a musician whose ears are open to the universe. For McQuarry, that quest has taken him far and wide, and over the years he’s studied at the Eastman School of Music, the University of Colorado at Denver, Berklee College of Music, University of California San Diego, and Alexander University.

“I kept studying with different people, with professors on and off over the years,” McQuarry says. “I’d hear about something going on and I kept studying to keep learning and building up compositional tools. I still do that today.”

Born August 17, 1959 in Denver, Colorado, he grew up in the Mile High City surrounded by music. His mother was a pianist (as were various aunts and uncles) and he watched her play hymns in the Methodist Church and classical music at home. He started piano lessons at six, and by 10 he was learning piano and music theory from Dr. Janice Buckner. Before long he was making his first forays into composing. Like many young musicians at the time, Miles Davis captured his imagination. “My mother bought me a copy of Bitches Brew when it came out in 1970, and that turned me on my head,” McQuarry says.

In junior high his interest in the orchestra led him to the cello, and he played through the end of high school. At the same time, McQuarry was getting swept up in the popular music of the day, playing R&B and jazz with friends. Always interested in electronics, he requisitioned his high school’s underutilized synthesizer and taught himself to play and program it. He’s been deeply involved in electronics ever since, including working as an audio engineer.

“That synthesizer really changed my life,” McQuarry says. “It put me into another type of music and hooked me into bands like Tangerine Dream. I started studying who was making synthesizer music and following the latest technologies introduced by Dr. Moog. I got a bunch of albums by Herbie Hancock and Joe Zawinul with Weather Report.”

Already gigging around Denver with pop bands, McQuarry found that his facility on the synthesizer led to recording gigs with professional musicians eager to explore the new technology. Recruited to the University of Colorado by a professor eager to have a synthesizer student, he found himself collaborating with John Cage and electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick. But the artists who made the biggest impact were trumpeters Red Rodney and Dizzy Gillespie.

“Rodney really helped give me a focus, getting me to think about what is my style, and the importance to keep trying to achieve that,” McQuarry says. “And watching Dizzy play was an amazing experience. He was really connected with the drummer. He had the clearest tone I’ve ever heard.”

McQuarry spent a decade in San Diego, where he focused on Latin jazz and connected with the great swing/blues trombonist, bandleader, and arranger Jimmy Cheatham (who co-led a superb little big band with his wife, Jeannie Cheatham). By the time McQuarry moved to the Bay Area in 1996 to work in the high tech industry, electronic music had become his primary focus. Inspired by acts like UnderWorld, Roni Size, and Massive Attack, he honed the intoxicating sound of Synsor, developing a potent mix of electronica, techno, trance, ambient, house, and drum ’n’ bass. Synsor’s 2004 album Protocol, the first release on McQuarry’s label Mandala Records, earned international attention, but his focus was already starting to turn toward the orchestral investigations that led to Resonance.

“This is a great time to do independent stuff,” McQuarry says. “Starting my own label means that I have an outlet for my compositions. Now I can compose, record, and release the things I’m working on as they’re ready.”

With the upcoming release of Resonance’s debut album, McQuarry has everything in place for his chamber jazz vision to resonate far and wide, without worrying about whether it fits comfortably in jazz, classical, or world music bins.