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SHARONNE COHEN
AL McLEAN
Emphasis on Aesthetics
Saxophonist Al McLean might be the only
jazz musician in Montreal to sit in on all
three jam sessions in town, every single
week. He’s at Upstairs on Mondays, Diese Onze
on Tuesdays and Grumpy’s on Wednesdays, and
he’s there not only to play; McLean is known
around the city as the go-to saxophone restoration
expert, particularly for vintage horns.
McLean, a professor at McGill University’s
Schulich School of Music, recently celebrated
the release of Frontiers (Cellar Live), his second
recording with veteran Los Angeles-based saxophonist-composer
Azar Lawrence, which pays
tribute music and spirit of John Coltrane.
“He is the primary reason I got into music,
and the saxophone,” said McLean of Coltrane’s
profound influence. “I decided that would be
my mission, to get close to making listeners feel
some of the way I feel while listening to Coltrane.
There’s something so visceral about his music.
And that’s how I feel about Azar’s music. It’s
shocking, the depth of it.”
McLean, who grew up in Esquimalt, a suburb
of Victoria, British Columbia, arrived in
Montreal in 1995 to attend McGill’s music
school, where he went on to earn bachelor’s and
master’s degrees in jazz performance. Within
two years, he was getting hired for gigs around
town, subbing in various groups and playing in
pianist Vic Vogel’s big band. McLean worked
on cruise ships for a period of five years, sailing
between Vancouver and Alaska, Singapore and
Hong Kong. He also spent several years working
as a vehicle inspector, while gigging three nights
a week at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel and attending
as many jam sessions as he could.
But over time, the demands of his day job
and busy performance schedule left McLean
feeling burned out, and the saxophonist took a
year off to begin learning how to repair instruments.
“I had two C-melody saxophones hanging
around—novelty horns, not something people
want,” he recalled. “I got my airplane model
building supplies out, rebuilt them and started
becoming proficient at it.”
McLean now has musicians from all over the
world shipping him their saxophones for repair,
but he focuses on local professionals’ instruments.
His restoration practice led him to
Montreal photographer and filmmaker Randy
Cole (co-producer of both McLean-Lawrence
albums), who was selling vintage horns at the
time. Cole suggested creating mini-documentaries
portraying McLean playing these restored
vintage instruments, and so began their collaboration
on Jazz, Period.—a series of short films.
“We started sourcing vintage saxophones
and churning out beautiful restorations of rare,
hard-to-come-by instruments,” McLean said.
McLean met Lawrence (who succeeded John
Coltrane in McCoy Tyner’s group) while sharing
the stage at a Lenox Lounge jam session in
Harlem. The two stayed in contact, later playing
a weekend at Upstairs in Montreal, followed
by the recording of Conduit (2015). Frontiers,
the second Lawrence-McLean collaboration,
is rooted in mid- to late-1960s classics. The
album spans medium-tempo minor-key modal
tunes—Coltrane’s classic “Lonnie’s Lament” and
Lawrence’s “Mystic Journey”—as well as two
Thelonious Monk ballads, McLean’s “Get Up”
and Freddie Hubbard’s “Up Jumped Spring.”
“Playing with Azar really kicks my ass,”
McLean reflected, “because he has so much
energy. There’s so much meaning in his playing.
I think to myself, ‘Wow, what do I play after
that?’ It’s a cross between finding my own voice
and being completely dumfounded.”
McLean has an appreciation for vintage
craftsmanship. “I drive a 1959 Pontiac. These
old things have a certain character that you don’t
see anymore,” he mused. “It’s the same with the
horns I restore. They’re all hand-made. They’re
works of art.”
—Sharonne Cohen
FEBRUARY 2017 DOWNBEAT 21