Jazzman McPherson Tries a Broader Approach

Saxophonist Charles McPherson has a new sound in mind, but he doesn’t think it will compromise the old McPherson, the pure be-bopper who came up under the guidance of Barry Harris and Charles Mingus.

Alto specialist McPherson has concentrated on composing in recent months. He’ll mix this new music with several of his older tunes plus jazz and popular standards at Elario’s, where he opens a two-week stand Wednesday night.

McPherson called his latest material “a hybrid concoction of classic be-bop with today’s sound, with mild electronic and/or acoustic rhythm sections playing be-bop rhythms behind today’s harmonies and musical forms.”

Part of this approach includes simpler, funkier rhythms--which might attract new listeners.

That doesn’t mean McPherson is watering down the tempered, Charlie Parker-influenced sound that won him a job dubbing sax parts for Clint Eastwood’s “Bird,” a tribute to the legendary bop saxophonist. McPherson thinks it is possible to keep his artistic integrity while making music a broader audience can appreciate.

To play the new material, McPherson plans to form a new band, starting with his son Charles Jr. on drums, and probably joined by a handful of top players from around the country.

At this point in his career, McPherson deserves a better hearing. He hasn’t recorded an album as a leader since 1985’s “The Prophet,” after turning out more than 20 albums as a leader since the mid-’60s.

Not that he’s been idle. McPherson is in constant demand for live dates around the world. He goes to Europe several times a year and just returned from England, where he worked clubs and concert halls in several British cities. Last weekend, he taped a KPBS-TV “Club Date” program, and made a guest appearance on a second “Club Date” featuring pianist Kenny Barron.

Last week, McPherson sat in the small living room of the La Jolla cottage he uses as a studio to talk about his life in jazz. He had just finished a practice session. At one point, he apologized that his morning coffee seemed to have caused a thought jam, although there was no apparent shortage of ideas. He stood up often and paced, or looked out the window as he talked.

McPherson didn’t care to divulge his age, but he let it slip that Parker was 19 years older than he. Parker, who died in 1955, would be 69 today.

“I’m going to pull a Jack Benny and be 39 for the next 25 years,” McPherson quipped.

Although he has always kept a following among hard-core jazz fans, he said the attention surrounding “Bird” gave his career a boost. McPherson was 15 when he first met Parker in Detroit and spent an hour dogging his idol.

“He answered every idiot question I asked. The only time he got short with me was when he asked for a match, and I couldn’t find one.”

Both men were born in the Midwest: Parker in Kansas City, Kan., McPherson in Joplin, Mo., 150 miles to the south.

“People back there feel the blues a certain way; they approach it a certain way,” McPherson said. “That’s when I first wanted to play, when I was 6 or 7 in Joplin.”

McPherson spent his teen years in Detroit in the mid-’50s, when black and white influences were merging into the popular sound of doo-wop and rock ‘n’ roll. He remembers playing with bands that emulated groups such as the Oreos and the Drifters.

He honed his sax skills in high school bands, and took lessons from the well-known jazz pianist Barry Harris, who just happened to live in his neighborhood. At the time, Harris was the house pianist at the Blue Bird in Detroit, where Miles Davis, Sonny Stitt, Max Roach and other jazz stars played when they hit town.

Harris gave McPherson a working knowledge of theory and a lot more.

“Barry would practice all day long. He instilled in me a sense of intelligence,” McPherson said. “I started studying with him when I was 15, and I remember him seeing my report card, which was quite average. He said, ‘You can’t have a report card with Cs. The kind of guys you’re trying to play like are not average at all.’

“He taught me to develop a reading habit, to learn about De Maupassant, about philosophy, about dance. He said, ‘You’ve got to know what those people were talking about. Then you’ll have something to play about.’ ”

McPherson left Detroit for New York City in the late ‘50s to seek his fortune. It didn’t take him long to get noticed.

“I had been there a few months, working with a house band at a little coffeehouse in Greenwich Village,” he said. “Eric Dolphy and Ted Curson were quitting Charles Mingus’ band, and he needed an alto man and a trumpeter.”

Mingus had heard about McPherson and his best friend, trumpeter Lonnie Hillyer. One afternoon, Mingus came to the Village and sat in with them. They were hired, and McPherson spent 12 stormy years with Mingus.

“He was so volatile. I got into horrendous situations. He demanded absolute quiet, and would start fights if he didn’t get it,” McPherson said. “I made a point not to stand next to him on stage in case some guy came back with a gun.

“His harmony impressed me. And some of the form. He had a haunting sound. Mingus would write all day. He had a big piano in the middle of his Village flat. Everything else was in disarray, everything around the piano was crumbling. He liked the act of writing. That impressed me in terms of discipline, being consumed by your work.”

Mingus, influenced by Duke Ellington, often wrote charts tailored to his band members. He penned several tunes to showcase McPherson, including “Meditations,” which appears on the mid-’60s album “Mingus at Monterey.”

As a teen-ager, McPherson first heard saxophonist John Coltrane. They lived close to each other in New York, and Coltrane’s wife used to watch McPherson’s children. McPherson would hear the sax man practicing when he picked up his kids.

He left Mingus in 1972 to front his own group. He moved to San Diego in 1978 to be closer to his mother in La Jolla and other members of his family, but still plays the top New York clubs.