“John McNeil played the truth, no matter what,” wrote drummer Vinnie Sperrazza in a tribute to McNeil after his death “and gave of himself freely, for decades, so that the music and the people would go on. Let’s notice his great contribution, notice the great contributions of all those around us, and get together.”
There are no fairy tales of the Andersen variety, reference to him, or otherwise here incidentally. Trolls there are none: It’s not an album of grotesquerie. But instead there is more than a strong draught of American romance about this album, certainly in terms of dreamy material.
McNeil in retrospect is probably known more as an educator because he spent decades teaching at the New England Conservatory where he taught people like Dave Douglas and Jason Palmer.
McNeil was also the author of The Art of Jazz Trumpet, a comprehensive study of modern jazz trumpet playing that also includes textbook calibre tips on articulation, valve technique and alternate fingerings.
The American needless to say also had plenty of performance chops in reserve built on playing with the Horace Silver Quintet and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra and proved on his own records. But he also had to fight difficulties in his life. He suffered from Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a degenerative neuromuscular disorder that later forced him to relearn to play his trumpet left handed.
He had a marvellous tone and sensibility – when I hear both aspects of his craft I think of Tom Harrell a bit – and you get that here on this live album recorded with two Danes, bassist Jesper Lundgaard, who in the 1970s was also a member of the Jones/Lewis Orchestra touring just before Jones left the band, and drummer Aage Tanggaard. A few years on from what we hear on this recording Lundgaard and Tangaard played together with Paul Bley on a 1985 release – also issued by Danish jazz label SteepleChase – called Questions. Nevertheless I can’t quite imagine if there indeed were – there’s isn’t – a piano player on There Is No Greater Love, Bley, who typically found much freer space to roam in harmonically.
Above all what a great reminder of McNeil who isn’t a name that always tripped off people’s lips other than those belonging to musicians or a few clued up critics. And it’s easy to be encouraged to go back and find more of his fairly extensive work for the same label. And that’s just what I am doing now by listening to 1983’s I’ve Got the World on a String with the same personnel as here plus guitar icon Doug Raney on which ‘Si Si’ also appears.
