McNeely, Jim (actually, James Harry)

McNeely, Jim (actually, James Harry), jazz pianist, composer; b. Chicago, May 18, 1949. He earned his B.A. in Music from the Univ. of III. in 1975. He moved to N.Y. that same year and worked with Ted Curson (1976–78), Chet Baker (1978), the Thad Jones/ Mel Lewis Jazz Orch. (1978–79), and the renamed Mel Lewis & the Jazz Orch. (1979–84), which overlapped with a stint from 1981–85 with the Stan Getz Quartet. He worked from 1990–95 with the Phil Woods Quintet. Starting in 1983, McNeely has also performed on occasion his own trio. In January of 1996, he re-joined The Vanguard Jazz Orch. as pianist and Composer-in-Residence. He has become a highly respected jazz composer, composing for the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, the Metropole Orch. (Netherlands), the West German Radio Big Band, and the Stockholm Jazz Orch. He taught composition and other subjects from 1986 to 1992 at William Paterson Coll. in Wayne, N.J. From 1981 to 1998 he also taught at the jazz program of N.Y.U., and from 1991 to 1998 he was co-director of BMI Jazz Composers’ Workshop for professionals. He has appeared at numerous college jazz festivals as a performer and clinician, and has been involved regularly with summer workshops such as the Stanford Jazz Workshop and Jamey Aebersold’s Summer Jazz Clinics. He has also been a teaching resident at institutions in the U.S., Canada, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Germany, and Australia. In 1998, he was appointed “Permanent Chief Conductor” of the Danish Radio Jazz Orch.

Discography

Rain’s Dance (1976); Plot Thickens (1979); From the Heart (1984); Winds of Change (1989); East Coast Blow Out (1989); Jigsaw (1991); Live at Maybeck Recital Hall, Vol. 20 (1992); The Lickety Split Music of Jim McNeely (1997); Sound Bites (1997). m. lewis:Naturally (1979); Make Me Smile (1982); M. Lewis and the Jazz Orch.: Featuring the Music of Bob Brookmeyer (1993); Live at Montreux (1997). s. getz:Pure Getz (1982); Line for Lyons (1983); The Stockholm Concert (1983); Blue Skies (1982).

—Lewis Porter