Leaving such a panoramic, magisterially involving recording as this for posterity is quite the way to say goodbye. The latest addition to our top choices of a year of jazz listening
With the Frankfurt Radio Big Band, the project marked the American big band composer and arranger Jim McNeely’s final recorded work before his death last September. He worked as the German ensemble’s composer-in-residence.
A Chicago born jazz pianist and composer, McNeely after graduating from the University of Illinois moved to New York in 1975. He gained a reputation playing keyboards for groups led by Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, Stan Getz and Phil Woods.
Over his long career, he received 12 Grammy nominations and won a Grammy Award in 2008. He also directed the BMI Jazz Composers’ Workshop for 16 years.
Mentored by Bob Brookmeyer, McNeely developed a bold writing style. He blended rich post-bop harmonies with complex, multi-layered arrangements. His signature sound features fast saxophone runs, punchy syncopated bass lines and dramatic brass accents.
His most celebrated work spans several decades of top-tier big band recordings. He made an immediate mark with East Coast Blow Out in 1989, a groundbreaking suite recorded with the WDR Big Band, guitarist John Scofield, Bass Desires icon Marc Johnson and Sco head Adam Nussbaum, the revered sticksman later known for his work in The Impossible Gentlemen and with Linley Hamilton.
As chief conductor of the Danish Radio Big Band, McNeely produced the Grammy-nominated album Nice Work. During his long tenure with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, he also crafted albums like Lickety Split and Up from the Skies.
As I listen a few times I think of some of the arranging style of Kenny Wheeler a little and reflect on how the sound customised into a new space entirely by McNeely conveys a certain lost in time quality without seeming dated at all such is the essential modernity and panoramic sweep of the ideas.
And there are interesting curveball choices that send me into another space entirely – for instance the rickety use of harp [Miroslava Stareychinska] that releases a curious microtonalism at the beginning of ‘At Twilight’ that leads into a glorious trumpet – or is it flugel, one can’t be quite sure – melodic foray & Gil Evans like response from the wider trumpet section.
During his career, McNeely delivered sweeping symphonic collaborations, including 2022’s Rituals with saxophonist Chris Potter and as here the Frankfurt Radio Big Band.
The great strength of jazz made in Germany is its jazz big band heritage which has no equal anywhere in Europe in terms of quality and quantity at the highest, sustained, level of production and performance curated by a range of broadcasting organisations and supported by the listening public year in year out.
For Expeditions the recording took place in a live setting at Frankfurt’s Hessischer Rundfunk [Hesse broadcasting] Sendesaal studio/hall in June 2024. The very absorbing compositions range from fanfares and counterpoint to solo features across the brass, woodwind and rhythm sections.
The Expeditions suite is tailored directly to the playing styles of the Frankfurt Radio Big Band’s individual members. Principal players include Steffen Weber, Martin Auer, Heinz-Dieter Sauerborn and Martin Scales. But the collectivism in the music making is all and there’s a whole lotta love found here expressed on so many levels.
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