| WARNING: This article contains excerpts from jazz criticism. Continued exposure to jazz criticism may lead to bewilderment, frustration, and outbursts of rage. |
Or it may lead to outbursts of laughter. Here are some examples of what critics have said about the subject of this article, the alto saxophone player Jackie McLean:
But perhaps I'm being unfair. Jazz criticism isn't the easiest field in which to work. In particular, it's not likely to make you a millionaire, and people seem to put into it the effort appropriate to the reward. A lot of jazz criticism seems of necessity to have been dashed off, especially when it appears in liner notes. The writers of liner notes often seem not to have been given a chance to listen to the album they're writing about more than once, which is probably why they provide lots of biographical information, remarks about plaintive wideness or the milk of musical rightness, and bland observations such as "a flowing solo" and "passionate playing."
- "There's a plaintive wideness to his playing."
- "[McLean's music] contains the milk of musical rightness."
- "The music is driven by a pulse that not only is a model of forward motion but which has depth, breadth, and width, too."
To get around at last to Mr. McLean, my reading of articles about him at first aroused the uncomfortable suspicion that he may have many admirers among the sadomasochist community. Frequent reference is made to his piercing or cutting or withering tone, and to things like "acid lyricism."
Well, having some damn fine chops and consequently a strong, well controlled tone certainly did not hinder Mr. McLean's career. His tone doesn't conjure up images of pain for me, though. But if you like that sort of thing, all the better for you.
Another word often used to describe Mr. McLean's playing is direct. That seems an apter description to me. Jackie McLean was not fooling around. When you listen to him you get the impression that he has something he really wants to play for you, and that he wants to play it right now.
That, of course, is no better a description than the ones I was ridiculing earlier. Whither this impression of directness?, I hear you asking, as well you might.
In part this impression comes from Mr. McLean's ability to improvise in long phrases without repeating himself and without simply running up and down the scales. When he took a long solo, he did not run out of ideas.
The sense of immediacy and directness also comes from Mr. McLean's ability to create what in the psychology trade is known as an arousal boost. Whether or not his tone is piercing, cutting, or withering, it definitely is not sweet (he once referred to his playing as sugar-free jazz). Consequently it gets your attention when you hear it and makes you more alert, which, as I recall from my studies of, ahem, aesthetics and psychobiology under, ahem, D. E. Berlyne, is reinforcing – that is, you tend to listen to him more.
Mr. McLean was also not afraid to play slightly off the tone occasionally, when it suited the music. He didn't sound as if he was playing out of tune, but the slight difference between what he plays and what you would expect him to play also serves to increase your arousal.
Critics have tended to describe Mr. McLean's playing as lacking melodic variety, but to me it seems much more melodic than most jazz musicians'. As I have noted already, runs up and down the scale are less common in his playing than in other musicians', which means that melodies are more common.
Critics also tend to mention his strong rhythmic sense. What this seems to mean is that he wasn't ashamed to play something you could dance to. He can play solos that are as infectiously rhythmic as Hank Ballard's "Finger Poppin' Time."
In other words, he swings. He swings really hard. As they are in many other aspects of life, enthusiasm and exuberance are démodés in jazz these days. Mr. McLean's ability to swing may in fact be the reason it took jazz critics a long time to give him his due.
Oh, they have always liked him, but they have liked more boring players more. As Wentworth Sutton has observed (in an article that will eventually be republished here), practitioners of serious music got very narcissistic after the second world war. They decided it wasn't their job to interest the audience, but the audience's job to pay attention to them. This attitude resulted in such accomplishments as Anthony Braxton's decision to take the mouthpiece off his clarinet and perform on that. And to record himself while he did it so everyone could listen.
Reasonable thresholds of boredom still being prevalent among the population, postwar jazz pretty well eliminated the audience for jazz. The only fans left were ones who wanted to idolize the musicians or to appear ultrahip as a result of liking what those in the musical profession refer to technically as all that weird-ass shit, or who actually like boring music. Someone like Mr. McLean, who played music which was not boring, appears eccentric to them, and he has been discussed by some critics as if he were an eccentric.
But Mr. McLean didn't play for the critics. He said once that one of the most important things he learned from Art Blakey when he played in his band in the 1950s was how to play solos which interested the audience as well as the other musicians. The secret, Mr. McLean revealed, was not to fool around. The solo must be carefully constructed to build to a single climax, which is also the end of the solo. That keeps the audience interested where formless displays of pyrotechnics or endless noodling do not.
In other words, Jackie McLean was thinking all the time. In particular, he was thinking about where his solos are going. As Bob Blumenthal has observed, his solos are coherent assemblages of a wide variety of musical ideas. They are not off the rack. They are custom items tailored with you, the listener, in mind.
His Let Freedom Ring album of 1962 is much admired these days, but, although it is a good album, it pales in comparison with some albums he recorded shortly afterwards. Let Freedom Ring was his first excursion into modal playing, and some people have decided that makes it a great album. The fact is that his playing is less assured than on recordings he made after further experience with modal playing. His phrases are shorter than usual, and he makes uncharacteristically frequent use of trills and honks, just as if he weren't too sure about what he should be playing next. I prefer Vertigo and Hipnosis, while One Step Beyond and Destination Out are also highly regarded.
An interesting early recording is Swing Swang Swingin'. Those guys who say he's not melodic obviously haven't been listening to it. It really swings, too. Jackie's Bag and Bluesnik are other good albums from his pre-modal days.
Jacknife (sic) is another interesting album which demonstrates that even post-swing jazz can be both good and crowd-pleasing. Finally, I especially recommend Dynasty, a recording he made with a band which included his son René, himself an excellent tenor player, and Idris Hotep Galeta. Dynasty was made nearly thirty years after Swing Swang Swingin', but it swings just as hard.
If you like those albums, he made plenty of others. In fact, Blue Note is still issuing sessions he recorded back in the Sixties but which were never released then. That's because, despite the critics, Jackie McLean's skill, exuberance, and concern for his audience made him a key figure in jazz, both as a player and as a teacher, and people want to hear as much of him as they can. Just another sign that Jackie McLean was not fooling around.
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