When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
And…don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
As life’s challenges and opportunities arose, Pete McGuinness based life-changing decisions upon the well-meaning advice of those idioms.
Metaphorically, of course.
And now the results of his evolution have been packed up in an overflowing container.
Musically, of course.
The title of McGuinness’s most recent album, Mixed Bag, literally refers to the variety of musical styles that it contains.
It could also refer to the virtual challenges that have shaped his personal evolution from his initial high-school jazz studies in West Hartford, Connecticut.
McGuinness continued his jazz studies.
Formally, by earning in 1987 a Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music. Fast forward to now: McGuinness is an Associate Professor of Jazz Studies and Arranging at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey.
Informally, by studying composition and arranging with jazz icons Bob Brookmeyer and Manny Albam. The result: McGuinness has written numerous arrangements through grants or for jazz projects initiated by the likes of Dave Liebman or the Westchester Jazz Orchestra.
McGuinness’s move to study in New York offered him a multitude of opportunities to perform trombone in various jazz groups—and to record on over fifty albums—either his own or those led by Lionel Hampton, Maria Schneider, or Jimmy Heath, for example.
In 2007, McGuinness formed his own jazz orchestra—the one that has now recorded Mixed Bag in 2025.
However, inspired by the cool appeal of Chet Baker’s singing, McGuinness learned to sing too.
McGuinness the Vocalist gained notice. He was a semi-finalist in the Thelonious Monk Vocalist Competition. He won the New York Jazzmobile’s vocal competition. And McGuinness continues to sing in the vocalese/bebop vocal group, The Royal Bopsters.
Then fate intervened.
A neurological condition progressed to the point that McGuinness couldn’t play trombone any longer. That’s when the truth of Henry David Thoreau’s observation about compensation became apparent: “We shall find compensation in every disappointment.” His secondary talents, having become primary, provided the path for further discoveries. McGuinness concentrated on composition and arranging, not to mention singing, more than ever before.
Mixed Bag offers both the personal and orchestral renewed mixture of talents as his and the musicians’ individual seasonings have expanded throughout the last two decades.
After drummer Scott Neumann’s driving solo introduction to “From This Moment On,” McGuinness’s vocal interpretation of the song foreshadows that this, the orchestra’s fourth, album will be different from the others. Alto saxophonist Dave Pietro solos with brisk gusto. Then, McGuinness returns for an effortless scat solo and a final chorus backed by orchestra’s dynamic energy and broad voicings.
McGuinness sings on another Cole Porter song, “So In Love,” whose harmonies he cannily realized are like those of Brazilian bossa novas. Accordingly, McGuinness’s version highlights his ability to poignantly interpret a ballad within a tenor’s range. But also, his arrangement, adding to the album’s mixture of styles, effectively features the orchestra’s instinctive abilities—resulting from years of friendships and joint performances—to connect with the distinctiveness of McGuinness’s arrangements.
McGuinness the Composer brings to life the fulfillment of four of his ideas for jazz orchestra arrangements. “The Dark Hours” establishes in five-four a evocative recollection of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the performance grows in intensity from pianist Mike Holober’s initial pedal point. “Lilac Blues,” a gorgeous, calmly sauntering piece follows. The orchestra proceeds as one voice, so effectively do the sections blend with tight harmonies in the middle range. Then it’s McGuinness’s “Down the Rabbit Hole,” follows—as a complete contrast to the mood of “Lilac Blues” as McGuinness incorporates twelve-tone technique into his compositional skills. The overall effect—with the addition of guitarist Pete McCann, the upper-register exclamations of trumpeter Chris Rogers, and the jabbing accents—is thrillingly cinematic.
McGuinness also wrote “The Sly Fox” as a tribute to one of his primary influences, Bill Holman, who died at the age of 96 in 2024, when McGuinness was writing the music for Mixed Bag. Holman’s work with the Stan Kenton Orchestra in the fifties was legendary. But then, so was Holman’s influence on big band stylings, particularly on the West Coast, throughout the rest of his life. McGuinness’s “The Sly Fox” captures Holman’s irresistible feeling of swing, as well his contrapuntal weavings of various instruments into a composition’s total fabric. Pete McGuinness Jazz Orchestra captures the joy of Holman’s music that McGuinness must have felt as a teenager.
Rogers wrote his own composition, “Rebecca,” whose Brazilian rhythms recall those of numerous other sambas. The fact that “Rebecca” fits within the style and spirit of Mixed Bag not only signifies Rogers’s additional talents as composer and arranger, like McGuinness’s, but also his familiarity with McGuinness’s musical moods and techniques. Rogers delivers an exhilarating solo and an exciting cadenza to finish his own song.
McGuinness includes on Mixed Bag his musical perspectives of jazz standards like “Body and Soul,” “Django,” and “’Round Midnight.” His arrangement of “Body and Soul” borrows from McCoy Tyner’s vamp on Coltrane’s Sound, the allusion made evident by Holober’s slight modification in the introduction. But McGuinness uses the famous vamp as the inspiration to develop a warm version of subdued orchestral lines blending into its own sonic palette. Again, Holober respectfully introduces John Lewis’s darkly haunting composition, “Django,” with a rubato rumination until :42, when the orchestra, with instant contrast, brightens its spirit to achieve an up-tempo celebration. At a largo tempo, the orchestra delves a unique version of Thelonious Monk’s “’Round Midnight” as it backs baritone saxophonist Dave Riekenberg’s richly flowing solo, the instruments blending into unified prismatic shifts of dynamic shapes and atmospheric shades.
The growth of McGuinness’s musical resourcefulness continues on Mixed Bag’s final track, “Where Do You Start?” For the first time, he challenged himself to arrange it for a studio orchestra that included a string section, a flute, a French horn, and a clarinet. McGuinness’s singing again conveyed his personal emotions while Holober, who leads his own esteemed jazz orchestra, conducted. This switching of roles left the piano seat open. Bill Charlap, McGuinness’s colleague at William Paterson University’s Jazz Music Department, accepted McGuinness’s invitation to participate, further distinguishing the orchestra’s performance with his own elegant solo.
The lessons of Mixed Bag are:
It’s not where you start that matters. It’s where you finish.
When one door closes, another one opens.
Every cloud has a silver lining.
When life gives you lemons, learn to juggle.
Artist’s Web Site: www.petemcguinness.com
Label’s Web Site: www.summitrecords.com
