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What is this?

November 5, 2009In the 1990s, Maria Schneider told JazzSet, "When I think that, for the rest of my life, I'm going to be trying to figure out, 'What am I going to be writing next?'' — it's kind of scary."

On the occasion of recording this concert from the 2009 Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival, we asked the Maestro to follow up.

JazzSet: Is it still scary? Is it less scary? Or have you become more secure, and worry instead that you will have a shortage of time?

Maria Schneider: You bet it's still scary. The only thing is that I know from experience that somehow, by some mysterious principle that I don't understand, something almost always comes in the nick of time. Deadlines do induce panic and, inversely, inspire me.

JS: As we worked on this edition of JazzSet, I felt like crying every time I heard your introduction. And "Sky Blue," and even the "Cerulean Skies" story and music about birds on a long migration, makes me cry. How do you handle the emotion?

MS: I just put my heart and soul into my music. And sometimes I do cry when I write it, and on occasion I cry when my musicians play it. But more often, I'm balancing a high wire between emotions and intense concentration when writing and when conducting, so in [that] state I often get moved in a different way. The hair stands on end. I get excited, deeply joyful, even if the music is somehow mournful.

JS: Do you still compose at a big drafting table?

MS: I have a huge board at my piano that is almost like a drafting board. I've written that way since 1983, and still don't use computer programs. I have a copyist put my music into a computer to generate parts for the musicians, but I'm still partial to pencil and paper and sketches.

JS: In "Cerulean Skies," who plays the call of the loon?

MS: That's not supposed to be a loon (even if it sounds exactly like one), because loons don't sit in trees in Brazil. I had to imagine there was some bird in Brazil that sounded similar to that. It's [tenor saxophonist] Rich Perry. I guess he should try to be less loon-like. I'll work with him on that, though it might crush him. I think the loon call has possibly become his second love to the tenor sax. Well, then again, maybe not.

JS: For those who don't know what we're talking about, Maria Schneider lives in New York near Central Park, a stop on one of the great migratory flyways of the hemisphere, and she is a dedicated "birder." On May 16, 2009, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., before conducting "Cerulean Skies," Maria shared the narrative (inspired by, but not fully faithful to, real bird migrations) behind the music.

MS: Imagine that we're opening up somewhere in Central America or South America. I prefer Brazil. For the sake of argument, imagine we're in Brazil. We're in a rainforest in Brazil, and you're going to hear a loon — just accept that — sitting in a tree. It opens up; this forest is opening. It's a magnificent morning. It's the joy of the forest. And then, going into Donny's solo, these birds (I could be saying this wrong), the birds' physiology changes. They start eating. They gorge themselves on food. They have to make this long flight. Their feathers start changing, so they get kind of sexually attractive, looking for mates and things like that. So all that sensuality, earthiness, instinct to go north to procreate, is going to come up through Donny McCaslin, and believe me, he's got the goods. (He hates when I say that.) Virility.

And then, at the end of his solo — if you can imagine these flocks of birds — you're seeing them, going up into the sky into a pinprick, small. And then we go into the mind's eye of one warbler. Imagine the black warbler. Some of them go from Peru, 4,000 kilometers without stopping. (That's true, isn't it?) Then they land in the park, exhausted.

Imagine these things: They're navigating by the stars at night, with the thousands of wings fluttering next to them. That's going to be Gary Versace, on the accordion. And then you'll hear us land in the park; that's a chorale from Frank Kimbrough. And then there's just the joy of enjoying these birds that comes through [reed player] Charles Pillow for the rest of the piece. So here is "Cerulean Skies."

Recording by Greg Hartman of Big Mo. Remix in Surround Sound by Duke Markos.