Jim McNeely

(and the Don Ellis/Mel Lewis story)

RIP pianist and composer Jim McNeely. The official obit (to which I contributed) is at the McNeely website.

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I studied with Jim for a few years in 1991--93 when attending New York University. While Jim was helpful in a traditional “how do you play and compose” way…

…I also just loved listening to Jim tell stories. Eventually I decided that the lore of the music was more important than anything in a harmony book, and in time I would interview almost 50 important musicians for Do the Math.

McNeely’s own contribution to that archive was reposted to TT recently.

I also reviewed his latest record, Primal Colors, earlier this year.

However, good news, a final McNeely big band record will come out posthumously. Jim told me that this was his best work yet.

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The last time I saw Jim two weeks ago, I asked him about Don Ellis. It turned out that Jim didn’t think much of Ellis, which made sense. Serious big band writers don’t like Ellis the way that serious jazz pianists don’t like Dave Brubeck. (I personally have more room for both Ellis and Brubeck than many of my peers.)

“Well, this brings up that Mel Lewis story. I must have told you that one.”

“No, Jim, I don’t remember hearing that story. Mel Lewis and Don Ellis? No.”

“Oh, this is in my top seven stories.”

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Quick background:

Don Ellis played interesting trumpet with George Russell, made a couple of fascinating early records with Jaki Byard and Paul Bley, and then suddenly made a populist splash with a big band that specialized in odd meters. Odd meters are literally everywhere these days, but traditional jazz barely had 3/4, let alone 5/4 or 7/8. Both Brubeck and Ellis were poster children for odd meters (not unlike Rush and Yes in prog rock), and discussion of these odd meters was a large part of their press kit. Don Ellis seemed to treat the topic like a mad scientist, going for the “biggest” and “best” odd time signatures, like 33/16. In 1971, Ellis wrote the excellent score to the hit movie The French Connection, and suddenly Ellis was on track as a major film composer (and cinema might have been the best place for his talents)…but, sadly, Ellis died at 44 of cardiac arrhythmia in 1978.

Mel Lewis was one of the great big band drummers, someone who really understood the mysterious science of swing. Lewis also could be tactless in conversation.

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So I was on tour with Mel Lewis, Thad Jones had left the band, it was probably 1980, we were in Minnesota playing a concert and giving a workshop. At the public workshop Mel took a question from a boy in the front row.

“Do you play any ‘time’ pieces?”

Mel replied, naturally enough, “What’s a ‘time’ piece?”

The kid said, “Pieces in 5/4 or 7/8, like Don Ellis.”

Mel took a deep breath. “In America we play in 4/4. That’s our time signature. If you are in Turkey or the Balkans, you might play comfortably and casually in 7 or 11 because that’s their culture. But in America we play in four…and I guess Don Ellis found that out, because look what happened to him!”