Jackie McLean RIP

[Noj]

Just got home and found out about Jackie. I'm listening to Right Now! in his honor. RIP.

[agriffith]

Just found out about this............. very sad. Mr. McLean is one of my biggest inspirations. Unfortunately I never had the opportunity to see him in person.

He created beautiful honest music with all the swing and soul you could ever want.

R.I.P. and God Bless Jackie McLean.

[Epithet]

There's a WKCR tribute.

[ep1str0phy]

Heard about this just now. RIP, Jackie. I'll be spinning my Blue Notes tonight.

[Guest Chaney]

April 3, 2006

Jackie McLean, Jazz Saxophonist and Mentor, Dies at 74

By PETER KEEPNEWS

Jackie McLean, an acclaimed saxophonist who took a midcareer detour to become a prominent jazz educator, died on Friday at his home in Hartford. He was 74.

His death was confirmed by a spokesman for the University of Hartford, where Mr. McLean had taught since 1970. No cause was given.

Mr. McLean was one of many gifted young musicians who burst onto the New York scene after World War II in the wake of the musical revolution known as bebop. He worked with Bud Powell and Miles Davis before he was out of his teens, and later he gained valuable seasoning in the bands of Art Blakey and Charles Mingus before he began leading his own groups.

Also a prolific composer, Mr. McLean was one of the first alto saxophonists to absorb the pervasive influence of Charlie Parker and shape it into a distinctive personal style. While the influence was clear, especially in his approach to harmony, Mr. McLean's astringent tone and impassioned phrasing marked him as more than just another Parker disciple.

His career had a second act as well. In the late 1960's he put performing aside to concentrate on teaching.

On his arrival at the University of Hartford in 1970, he was a music instructor at the Hartt School. Ten years later he was named director of the university's newly formed African-American music program, one of the first degree programs in the field. In 2000, a year before he received a Jazz Masters grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the university renamed the program the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz.

For more than two decades he performed and recorded only occasionally. He devoted most of his energy to teaching, both at the university and at the Artists Collective, a community cultural center in Hartford that offered classes in music, theater, dance and the visual arts to local young people, which he founded and ran with his wife, Dollie. She survives him, along with his son Rene, of New York, a saxophonist who frequently performed with him; another son, Vernone, and a daughter, Melonae, both of Hartford; and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

In the early 1990's Mr. McLean shifted some of his focus back to performing. "I've always wanted to be remembered for being more than a saxophone player," he told Peter Watrous of The New York Times in 1990, when he returned to New York to perform at the Village Vanguard. "It's been important to put aside my horn and help people, act on what I believe. But the building for Artists Collective will be going up in the next two years, and the music department is now a full-degree program, so it's time to get back to playing."

John Lenwood McLean was born in Harlem on May 17, 1931. (Many sources give his year of birth as 1932, but The Grove Dictionary of Jazz and other authoritative reference works say he was born a year earlier.) The son of a jazz guitarist, he began studying saxophone at 14, starting on soprano but switching to alto after a few months.

Bud Powell, a neighbor who was the leading pianist of the bebop movement and a neighbor, took Mr. McLean under his wing. He also worked with the tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, another neighbor, and soon caught the attention of Miles Davis, who was just beginning his career as a bandleader. Davis used both Mr. McLean and Mr. Rollins as sidemen on one of his first recordings, in 1951.

Mr. McLean began recording his own albums in 1955. He also had a brief but memorable stage and screen career, appearing in the 1959 Off Broadway production of "The Connection," Jack Gelber's play about drug addiction, and in the 1961 film version, directed by Shirley Clarke.

Mr. McLean was in a sense playing himself. His character was a member of a jazz combo, which provided the music as well as taking part in the action. His character was also a heroin addict — as, he later acknowledged, was Mr. McLean himself. He eventually kicked the habit, and when he became a teacher he often spoke to his students about the dangers of drugs.

In his younger days Mr. McLean was identified with the aggressive, rhythmically charged offshoot of bebop known as hard bop. But in the early and middle 1960's he surprised his listeners (and alienated some critics) by embracing the avant-garde movement then known simply as "the new thing" and later called free jazz, on a series of daring albums for Blue Note with names like "Destination Out" and "One Step Beyond." He even enlisted Ornette Coleman, one of the fathers of the new music, as a sideman on "New and Old Gospel." Although Mr. Coleman's main instrument, like Mr. McLean's, was alto sax, he played trumpet on that album.

But Mr. McLean preferred not to talk about his music in terms of categories. "I've grown out of being just a bebop saxophone player, or being a free saxophone player," he told Jon Pareles of The Times in 1983. "I don't know where I am now. I guess I'm somewhere mixed up between all the saxophonists who ever played."

[andybleaden]

Gosh

Another one gone of my favourites.

Words are not enough but I do have a nice Mosaic to compensate with later today when I get home.

I always think of his work as moving on what Hard Bop did in an accessible way.

Goodbye Jackie

[LarryCurleyMoe]

Wow! Really sad news - the maker of the great "DESTINATION OUT" has checked out! this was one of the first albums I really turned on to in the 1970's.

I was fortunate to see him back in the 1980's with JJ Johnson, Walter Davis Jr., and others. One of my favorite altoists & composers...

Rest in peace, Jackie.

[EKE BBB]

Jackie Mclean

Saxophonist with passion and fire

Published: 03 April 2006

John Lenwood McLean, alto saxophonist, bandleader and teacher: born New York 17 May 1931; married (two sons, one daughter); died New York 31 March 2006.

Coming up in the Fifties in the next generation after Charlie Parker, the alto saxophonist Jackie McLean played with passion and fire. His speed and urgency gripped the attention of his listeners and made him stand out from the other musicians of his day. Recalling his early days for the film-maker Ken Burns, McLean said,

Sonny Rollins and several of the other saxophone players and musicians that lived on Sugar Hill, we all knew that we had to practise and work hard because the music was not easy. You had to have great speed, good energy and dexterity and a good knowledge of chord progressions and theory in order to play this music.

McLean's father, a guitarist in the band of Tiny Bradshaw, died when Jackie was seven. His godfather, Norman Cobbs, who played in the band of Adam Clayton Powell's Abyssinian Baptist Church, took him there every Sunday and also to the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, where he heard Charlie Barnet's band and became fascinated with Barnet's various saxophones.

When the boy was 15, his mother bought him an alto saxophone and he took lessons from two veteran Harlem saxophonists, Walter "Foots" Thomas and Cecil Scott. He also began a life-long friendship and working relationship with Sonny Rollins, who lived in his neighbourhood. Jackie McLean's stepfather owned a record shop and this was where McLean was drawn to the playing of the tenor saxophonists Ben Webster and Lester Young.

Then he heard the first of Charlie Parker's records. "There was no thought after that about how I wanted to play," he said. As a youngster McLean was good enough to be asked occasionally to deputise for Parker. He recalled,

That was one of the biggest honours of my life. And when the gig was over he paid me, and that was an honour, too, because I wasn't playing for money . . . he called everybody one at a time, and then he called me and said "Put your hand out", and he started counting dollar bills into my hand. When he got to 18 I still had my hand out and he said "Well damn, Jackie, take your hand back sometime." So I took 15 dollars and gave him three dollars back. That was a lot of money for me then.

It was another veteran, the piano giant Bud Powell, who recommended the young man to Miles Davis. In 1951 McLean joined the Davis band and made his first recordings with it. By now, at 19, he was addicted to heroin.

Miles more or less became my teacher and forced me to stop approaching this music as a little boy and approach it as a man, with putting some deep study into learning how to play progressions and chords and learn how to play the piano and things like that.

McLean stayed with Davis for a year or so and went on to play for other leaders including Paul Bley, George Wallington and Charlie Mingus. He split much of his time during the second half of the Fifties working in either the Mingus Band or in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. In 1958 he formed his own quintet and for the next 10 years recorded prolifically first for Prestige and then for the Blue Note label.

In the late Fifties he found himself in a similar situation to Billie Holiday when his police cabaret card, essential to an artist working in jazz clubs in New York, was rescinded due to drug offences. He appeared on the New York stage, however, in the play about drug addicts The Connection and in 1961 appeared in the film version. He travelled to London with the production and stayed in Europe until October that year to appear in Paris. He rejoined the play in New York in 1963 and in 1965 led an all-star jazz quintet which he took to Japan. By now he was interested in free-form jazz as well as in Bebop.

In 1968 McLean joined the faculty of Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford, Connecticut and was appointed head of its Afro-American music programme in 1972. He began to make summer tours to Europe to play and teach, sometimes with his saxophone-playing son Rene, and he can be seen playing and teaching in the film Jackie McLean on Mars (1979).

During the Eighties, to enable him to expand his jazz career, McLean relinquished the chairmanship of his department at the Hartt School of Music, but continued to work as its creative director and founder-in-residence. He toured regularly and led a quintet with his son that appeared at the Village Vanguard in New York in 1990. In 1994 he and Sonny Rollins gave a concert together in New York and McLean appeared on the PBS show Jazz. He returned to the Village Vanguard in December 1995, when his quintet was made up from some of his former students.

McLean returned to Blue Note for the end of his recording career and his last work for the label was an album of ballads called Nature Boy (2000). He continued to tour the world as teacher and performer until his final long illness.

Steve Voce

[sjarrell]

I never saw Jackie play. Never will.

[king ubu]

Very sad news, read about it yesterday

[Indestructible!]

Hi All,

I've heard that funeral services for Jackie will be held on Friday, April 7th at 10:00am at Abyssinian Baptist Church (138 St at 7th & Lenox). Also, there will be time for viewing on Thursday afternoon/evening.

I truly wish that I could be there to pay respects to Jackie. If anyone goes (Chris A.?), please report back on the event.

Wow, the news of Jackie's passing still hurts as bad as it did on Saturday...

Shane

[Chuck Nessa]

Ann pointed me to the Saturday edition of the Muskegon Chronicle (our local paper) where an obit was printed (with color photo) on page 2, column 1, top.

Pretty amazing.

[Uncle Skid]

Ann pointed me to the Saturday edition of the Muskegon Chronicle (our local paper) where an obit was printed (with color photo) on page 2, column 1, top.

Pretty amazing.

I saw that, too. I was pretty surprised, but I'm glad someone at the paper took the time to put it in.

[Indestructible!]

Ann pointed me to the Saturday edition of the Muskegon Chronicle (our local paper) where an obit was printed (with color photo) on page 2, column 1, top.

Pretty amazing.

Chuck,

That's great! You've got one hip editor there!

Shane

[LAL]

Just saw this...

[Adam]

LA Times calls him 73.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mc...1,3697606.story

Jackie McLean, 73; Saxophone Great Played With Jazz Legends

By Jon Thurber, Times Staff Writer

April 2, 2006

Jackie McLean's introduction as a player to Birdland in New York City would become a legendary story in jazz. A protege of both pianist Bud Powell and saxophonist Charlie Parker, McLean was building a solid reputation in small bands in Harlem as an emerging force on saxophone.

He was not yet 21, however, and was plenty nervous when he showed up at Birdland one night, not to listen to the great musicians that came through town — as he often had over the years — but to play.

He walked into the club, found the band's leader, trumpeter Miles Davis, and introduced himself. And then McLean discovered that the rest of the group that night consisted of Art Blakey on drums, Percy Heath on bass, Horace Silver on piano and Gene Ammons on tenor saxophone. All of them would become legends of jazz.

"Miles pushed me out to play the first solo," McLean recalled in an interview with the Hartford Courant some years ago. About eight bars into the solo, McLean had an overwhelming feeling, and it wasn't good. He put down his horn and dashed backstage, where he found a convenient garbage can, leaned his face into it and let go. As he pulled his head out, the owner of the club, who was looking on in amazement, threw McLean a towel and said, "Get the hell back out there!"

"So I wiped my mouth," McLean said, and headed back on stage.

The rest of the players "were all just standing there," he said. "It was like time stopped, like a dream sequence. Nobody was playing, just the rhythm section. I went back out and finished playing my solo."

McLean said the audience gave him a wild ovation. "It was like they thought, 'Hey, here's a guy who throws up and plays.' "

From that mixed beginning in 1951, McLean, who died Friday at his home in Hartford, Conn., at 73, built a career as one of the great saxophonists, composers and educators in jazz. He had been in failing health for some time, family members said, but they did not announce the cause of death.

The same year that he played with Davis at Birdland, he joined the great trumpeter in the recording studio for an album called "Dig." The title came from an original composition by McLean, who was on his way to building a national reputation.

Over the next two decades, McLean produced an extensive body of recordings for the Prestige, New Jazz and Blue Note labels. The Blue Note recordings, including the albums "Jackie's Bag," "A Fickle Sonance" and "Let Freedom Ring," helped define the pioneering sound of the label in the early 1960s.

He also worked with most of the A-list figures in jazz during that period, including bassist Charles Mingus and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.

McLean's sound was distinctively his own: slightly sharp with a great intensity. He was one of the few bebop-oriented players from the early '50s to explore the improvisational free jazz movement of the early '60s. A New York Times critic once said McLean "expanded the language of bebop with his own musical vocabulary. He produced a searing tone and was one of jazz's most expansive innovators."

McLean told writer Zan Stewart that the most distinctive quality of his playing was his tone. "It's like an alto, but it's really a tenor coming from the inside of me," he said. "If I hadn't heard Bird [Charlie Parker], I would have switched to tenor, because I was in love with Dexter [Gordon], Ben Webster, Lester Young and the others."

By the late 1960s, straight-ahead jazz was in a downward cycle and so was McLean, who for several years had been dealing with a heroin addiction that he once told Chicago Tribune critic Howard Reich "happened before I knew it."

McLean kicked the drugs and devoted his energies to other pursuits. He visited prisons to counsel drug users and moved to Hartford, where in the late 1960s he developed what is now the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz at the University of Hartford's Hartt College of Music. It was one of the first strong jazz programs in the country. Throughout the rest of his life, his main focus would be on jazz education.

In the 1980s and '90s, McLean returned to a more active performing schedule that included playing with his son Rene, also a saxophonist. In addition to his wife and son, McLean is survived by daughter Melonae; another son, Vernone; five grandchildren; and several great-grandchildren.

Born in New York City, McLean grew up in Harlem, where his childhood friends included such future jazz stars as saxophonist Sonny Rollins, pianist Kenny Drew and drummer Art Taylor.

McLean recounted much of his life in music as one of the interview subjects in Ken Burns' 10-part PBS documentary series "Jazz," which aired in 2001. That year the musician was also recognized as an American Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts.

[Rooster_Ties]

So, did any major on-line news outlet (other than one associated with a newspaper) ever have a story on this?? I kept checking CNN.com and ABCnews.com, and never saw anything.

Was there at least something on NPR?? I mean, THAT'S the first major media outlet I'd expect to cover such a thing.

[bertrand]

Shane,

I assume the service is only for family and close friends, correct? I'm glad to hear that he is coming home to where he grew up.

Bertrand.

[JohnJ]

So, did any major on-line news outlet (other than one associated with a newspaper) ever have a story on this?? I kept checking CNN.com and ABCnews.com, and never saw anything.

Was there at least something on NPR?? I mean, THAT'S the first major media outlet I'd expect to cover such a thing.

I don't know about on-line but I was quite surprised to hear the news of his passing on the main AP world news bulletin at 1.00 p.m. Saturday (Tokyo time). The bulletin only lasts a couple of minutes.

[Guest]

so between what time periods exactly was mclean not able to play in NYC clubs? did he ever express a lot of consternation with this?

[sidewinder]

Not sure exactly when but it must have been in the early 1960s. My understanding is that the 'One Step Beyond' group with Hutcherson and Moncur did much of their collective woodshedding during a residency at the 'Blue Coronet' in Brooklyn (1963 ish), which must have been an outcome of the NYC ban. Strange to think that a big personal negative such as this ban could have spurred on new creative avanues in Jackie's music.

[Indestructible!]

Shane,

I assume the service is only for family and close friends, correct? I'm glad to hear that he is coming home to where he grew up.

Bertrand.

Hi Bertrand,

I heard that the service at the Abyssinian Baptist Church was open to the public. I know that's been the case for many other departed musicians in the past, and I believe that's the case for Jackie as well.

I too am glad the services will be held in the place Jackie spent a great deal of his youth.

Shane

[Chalupa]

Not sure exactly when but it must have been in the early 1960s. My understanding is that the 'One Step Beyond' group with Hutcherson and Moncur did much of their collective woodshedding during a residency at the 'Blue Coronet' in Brooklyn (1963 ish), which must have been an outcome of the NYC ban. Strange to think that a big personal negative such as this ban could have spurred on new creative avanues in Jackie's music.

The cabaret card was no longer a requirement for employment in NYC after 1960.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Cabaret_Card

From Prohibition until 1960, the New York City Cabaret Card was a required permit to be held by all workers in New York City nightclubs. Their administration was fraught with politics, and some performers' cards were revoked on specious grounds. Those of Thelonious Monk and Billie Holiday were suspended due to drug charges. In 1960 the death of Lord Buckley soon after his card was seized in mysterious circumstances evoked a scandal which led to the abolition of the cabaret card system.

[ValerieB]

just haven't been able to write anything before now because i'm just so damn sad. i can't say i was surprised to hear the horrible news though as i knew he had been battling health problems for years (prostate cancer, i believe). it's just such a huge loss. i remember hearing about how he used to practice and hang with my ex during the 50's and thank goodness i saw and heard him live a lot in the 60's, although not so much after that. i'm grateful for the dozens of times i did see him though. and he gave my ex teaching and performing gigs in his early years at hartt which was so great. i will miss jackie a lot. he gave so much in this lifetime and touched many folks deeply.

my sincere condolences to jackie's family.

valerie bishop

[ghost of miles]

So, did any major on-line news outlet (other than one associated with a newspaper) ever have a story on this?? I kept checking CNN.com and ABCnews.com, and never saw anything.

Was there at least something on NPR?? I mean, THAT'S the first major media outlet I'd expect to cover such a thing.

NPR did something on Jackie on Sunday Weekend Edition. Lessee if I can find a link:

Jackie McLean

Re: the cabaret laws, there's a whole book on the subject, written by the lawyer who helped bring about their end. The book's at my office, and I can't remember the guy's name... but Peter Pullman will be exploring this subject as well in his Bud Powell bio.