Maria Schneider is petite blue-eyed blond. She’s a beautiful woman in her mid-50s. I have actually never talked to her but have been to a couple of her performances and saw her pretty up close. That was an incredible treat.
Her persona evokes calm and centeredness. Seems very low key and unassuming. Not quite distant, but not quite approachable either.
As with many other cultural tips, I first heard about her from The Economist 2-3 years ago. I became a fan almost immediately.
Ms. Schneider is a composer, arranger and conductor. Her music is both powerful and silky smooth. She has enormous sense of harmony, instrumentation and flow. Even though I spend a lot of time immersed in piano and string classical music, Maria’s jazz winds take me to bright and ethereal places. I listen to her music when I’m down and I need to connect with my center.
Seeing Maria and her band live was an enormous treat. I don’t frequent the jazz clubs in New York but I should do it more often. It’s quite an experience. The ambiance is very intimate, the food is acceptable and the crowd is just fun, devoted and rowdy. Classical is sometimes too stiff, like the ridiculous tradition to not clap and acknowledge until the very end of a piece, even if it’s an hour and a half. Not so with jazz. I absolutely love the tradition of acknowledging solos and virtuoso passages as they come up.
I love the fact that the Maria Schneider Orchestra is made up of mostly middle-aged men who follow their female leader to a tee. I admire her quiet yet commanding presence, how she occupies her space, and how she achieves beautiful sound and flow. I’m sure nobody in her band doubts who is the boss. And the result is that their sound is as tight as can be and they all look happy.
Maria does something that you would never see a stiff and arrogant classical conductor do. Each one of her pieces features at least one solo, sometimes several. Now, each one of these musicians is a virtuoso in his own right, the pianist, the guitarist, the accordion (yes, there’s life for the accordion beyond the Polka), the drummer (who’s a lot of fun to watch, his energy, his perpetual smile), and each one of the winds. When a solo begins, Maria sits down on the stage floor, closes her eyes, bows her head and listens. She gives her soloist space. Reverence. Wow. This may go on for 5 minutes. But when the solo is coming to an end, she will once again stand up in front of her 17 men, and take them back into perfect harmony and rhythm.
I want to be a Maria Schneider groupie. If only she came to New York more often…
Today I recorded another guided meditation: “Purification for the Aching Heart”. Enjoy!!
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