Mustering Maria’s musical mystique
Schneider’s jazz orchestra revels in her ‘Thompson Fields’
Over the past 25 years Maria Schneider has built one of jazz’s finest orchestras, a talent-laden 17-piece ensemble that interprets her majestic music with a finely calibrated balance between free-wheeling improvisation and close readings of her subtly textured scores.
But the Grammy Awardwinning band, which makes a rare Bay Area appearance Sunday for a Cal Performances concert at Zellerbach Hall, didn’t always manage to perform with such exquisite equilibrium.
During the ensemble’s formative years in the early 1990s, Schneider landed a weekly gig at the nowdefunct West Village jazz spot Visiones, a residency that required her to write a steady flow of new material. And every week, she conducted the band half expecting a train wreck as the unruly herd of fiery New York players pushed against the limits of her music.
“Someone would take a solo, and I’d think ‘Oh my God, how are we going to make it back?” says Schneider, 56. “Sometimes it wasn’t successful, but they started to learn the boundaries, how to take it some place and then trust somebody’s going to help guide him back, often bassist Jay Anderson or pianist Frank Kimbrough.”
Anderson and Kimbrough still anchor the orchestra, which features numerous players who’ve been in the fold for more than two decades, including saxophonists Rich Perry, Scott Robinson and Donny McCaslin, who gained fame for his work on David Bowie’s final album “Blackstar.” (Schneider introduced McCaslin to Bowie after her Grammy-winning collaboration with the pop icon on the song “Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)”).
What makes her orchestra so extraordinary is the way she integrates strikingly individual players into a collective organism. Alto and soprano saxophonist Steve Wilson was at one of the first rehearsals and subbed in the band for years before becoming a full-time member around 2005.
“It’s been an incredible journey all the way,” said Wilson, speaking from Clearwater, Florida, where he was rehearsing with a new band led by Chick Corea. “Maria’s got such a distinctive, Americana sound, with no wasted notes. Her sound is very orchestral, not like a typical jazz big band, though we can do that, too. Her music is very unique, very visual. You can literally see what she’s writing about.”
The music the orchestra will perform at Zellerbach Feb. 19 is from Schneider’s 2015 release “The Thompson Fields” (ArtistShare), which won the Grammy for best large jazz-ensemble album. It’s a breathtaking project inspired by her long walks through the Minnesota countryside, where she was born and raised.
The music often feels programmatic, with pieces like the roiling “Nimbus” and the episodic “Walking by Flashlight,” an instrumental arrangement of her previous setting for Ted Kooser’s poem “November 18.” Soprano Dawn Upshaw sang the piece on Schneider’s 2013 ArtistShare release “Winter Morning Walks,” and the album won both women Grammy Awards — Schneider for best classical contemporary composition and Upshaw for vocal performance.
While Schneider doesn’t deny the source of inspiration, the creative process remains deeply mysterious. “Talking about it as if I understand it is a little disingenuous,” she says. “I write something, and all of the sudden subliminally an experience starts coming up and latches on to it. The music conjures up a story, a memory, a phenomenon.”
While the source of her music might remain inexplicable, Schneider has taken a leading role in combatting the opaque way the music industry parcels out profits. She’s testified before Congress regarding digital rights and has spoken frequently about musical piracy and the raw deal most musicians get from streaming services.
More than taking a vocal stand against the digital status quo, she created an album that presents her music within a gorgeous package that can’t be captured via streaming. With color photos and graphics of the plants, animals and landscapes from which she drew inspiration, “The Thompson Fields” offers a sensual guide to the sumptuous music. And much like her composing, the project resulted from a happy accident. That happened when graphic designer Cheri Dorr approached her at a farmer’s market and offered to work on her next project.
“She mentioned that she’s a designer and gave me her card and said, ‘I’m just going to tell you, I’m very good. I’m offering you something you should take me up on,’” Schneider recalls.
Through another connection, Schneider found San Francisco photographer Brienne Lermitte, who came with her to Minnesota and took the album’s striking images. The result was a gorgeous accompanying book designed by Dorr for the people who supported the crowd-sourced project.
“I didn’t set out to make a statement,” Schneider says. “It’s the same process as my music. I’ve never planned the direction of a record. I was spending more and more time in the country, and that brought me more in touch with things that were so important to me when I was young. I’m flying blind, and the pieces come together.”