tenor sax, clarinet & flute / producer & recording engineer
Experimentation and the search for original language characterize the collaborations of Juno-nominated composer, producer and woodwind player John MacLean. MacLean was a young clarinetist with classical aspirations when a chance introduction to Charles Mingus alumnus Billy Robinson led to a very fruitful mentorship and friendship. The disciplines of improvisation and creation just awakening in the clarinetist responded naturally to Robinson’s living tradition and language of jazz improvisation and tenor saxophone.
Creation and originality provided the philosophical springboard for the next twenty years of musical activity at home and abroad for MacLean. Between hundreds of live performances annually he has made time to apply his collected technical and compositional knowledge in the recording environment as producer, arranger, engineer of numerous albums as record label owner/operator [World Records]. Through collaborations in modern dance and his current co-creative endeavor, Mr. Something Something, he continues to probe the areas where stage and studio overlap for genuine expression of the human condition.
