[Dixielandjazz] Hal McKusick obit

[Steve Voce]

 From today's The Independent

The prolific recording career of Hal McKusick escaped the notice of most 
jazz listeners, yet the people who worked for him in the studios 
included such eminent men as Gil Evans, George Russell, Al Cohn, Jimmy 
Giuffre, Ernie Wilkins and Bill Evans. Although he was a musical 
revolutionary and composer in the manner of Dave Brubeck or Gil Evans, 
McKusick never made it to the top, although he remained in the middle 
for an extraordinary number of years.

He was an alto saxophone player in an era when the instrument was 
dominated by Parker disciples like Phil Woods and Bud Shank. But 
McKusick's flawless technique and enquiring mind didn't have the key to 
fame that the other two men had in their work -- passion. McKusick's 
playing was cerebral and melodious and had considerable individuality, 
but not a lot of bite.

He was one of Elvis Presley's beneficiaries. Presley's record company, 
RCA Victor, made such an embarrassingly large amount of money from the 
singer's recordings that for business reasonsthey had to disburse a lot 
of it quickly. Happily, they threw a substantial part of it at jazz, for 
once allowing artistry to take preference over potential profit, and 
among the multitude of recording sessions they promoted were some of 
McKusick's. It's unlikely that his brilliant but obscure 1955 album In 
an 18th Century Drawing Room that featured him with a quartet of cellos 
would have seen the light of day without the application of the Presley 
dollars. The most notable of McKusick's resulting RCA albums was the 
revolutionary 1956 Jazz Workshop, which drew in writers like Johnny 
Mandel, Gil Evans, Al Cohn and Manny Albam.

McKusick's career began in 1943 when he joined first Les Brown and then 
Woody Herman. He worked as a big- band sideman throughout the decade, 
playing for Boyd Raeburn, Alvino Rey, Buddy Rich, Ralph Burns, Claude 
Thornhill and Neal Hefti. He joined Charlie Barnet's orchestra in 1950, 
worked in the newly formed Terry Gibbs big band, and with Gene Krupa's 
small group, before joining Elliot Lawrence for five years from 1952.

He worked as a musical partner and sideman with George Russell during 
Russell's most effective period in the middle 1950s, before joining the 
staff of the CBS studios in New York. McKusick continued his jazz career 
alongside his studio work, which lasted until 1972. He also taught 
privately during this time and in total appeared on well over 200 
recording sessions, playing alto or tenor sax and clarinet.

An accomplished pilot, he flew often to his gigs and during the 1980s 
ferried passengers daily in the Caribbean. In 1994 he founded the Sag 
Harbor Jazz festival in New York and soon after formed a quartet that 
featured several up-and-coming jazz stars. He had an entirely separate 
career as a woodworker, making bowls and furniture in his workshop and 
was also an accomplished professional photographer.
STEVE VOCE

*Harold Wilfred McKusick Jr, reed player, band-leader, composer, 
woodworker, photographer and pilot: born Medford, Massachusetts 1 June 
1924; died Sag Harbor, New York 10 April 2012.*