By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
At 11 years old Will Schneider decided to play French horn.
This was before his passion for jazz improvisation blossomed.
Though a few players have explored the horn’s jazz potential, the instrument still remains on the margins.
Schneider found that out when he got to high school. He wanted to be part of every musical ensemble including the jazz band. There was no part for horn, so the band director assigned him to play fourth trumpet. Then, because he had started “messing around with cello” and the band needed a bass player, he moved to that instrument, figuring it was similar to cello. That proved his entry into jazz when he went to Central Michigan University, where he continued to play jazz bass while studying classical horn.
Yes, he wryly concedes now, deciding to play horn was “a bad choice,” made “without knowing what would happen down the road.”
“That’s what happens when you let an 11-year-old make a potentially life-altering decision.”
In the end, though, his choice of instrument didn’t much matter.
“The instrument isn’t the important part to me,” Schneider said. “It’s about the music, and I just happen to play the horn.”
Schneider is in the process of releasing his original music. Earlier this summer, he put out a three-track EP, “Spring Song,” and due out later this month is a full-length recording, “Trio Featuring.”
These come on the heels of the release earlier this year of a recording by the Third Shore Collective, with which he performs. That quintet took shape when Schneider and the other four members were all studying in the BGSU jazz program.
[RELATED: Third Shore Collective sounds out Howard’s crowd with ‘jazz adjacent’ style]
Schneider graduated a year ago from BGSU with two master’s degrees, one in classical horn performance and one in jazz performance.
And though he continues to perform in classical ensembles, his heart is in jazz. “I lean toward the improvisation end of things.”
The EP features a quartet with his Third Shore colleagues Zakk Jones on guitar, Dylan Bretz on bass, and Brad Billmaier on drums.
For four tracks on “Trio Featuring,” Schneider forgoes the chording instrument such as guitar or piano and plays with Bretz and Billmaier.
He likes the freedom of the “chordless” trio. “You don’t have a lot of restrictions.” The horn part and the bass play melodic counterpoint more than a lead line and accompaniment.
Some pieces needed other voices. Zakk Jones steps in for one track. “Zakk got pulled in pretty quickly,” Schneider said.
Schneider ran into another BGSU alum, pianist Logan Maccariella, who now lives in St. Louis and was back visiting Northwest Ohio.
Schneider asked him if he’d be interested in reading a couple charts. By the time he arrived in the studio to record, the pianist had made them his own.
Schneider’s compositions show a variety of influences, sometimes in the same piece. “Tehran” is at once inspired by the Billy Strayhorn ballad “Isfahan” from Duke Ellington’s “Far East Suite” as well as Schneider’s studies into Persian music. (He’s quick to note that he’s “not an expert” in that music.)
Schneider said he writes impulsively as ideas come to him, and then “I let the musicians interpret from that.”
One track is influenced by techniques explored by avant-garde jazz trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff, and another by the soundscape of recordings on the ECM label.
Certain harmonies recall his early love of Mahler.
The composer’s symphonies were mostly what he heard on the car radio while he was driving with his father, as well as the Miles Davis-Gil Evans collaboration “Sketches of Spain” and the music of Frank Zappa.
Schneider’s father was an amateur trumpet player. Schneider grew up in a largely classical milieu until jazz caught his attention.
“Maybe it was teenage rebellion,” he said. “I found a lot of expressive opportunities within improvisation.”
He didn’t focus, though, on playing jazz on horn until late in his undergraduate career when he applied to the Jazz Program at BGSU. He never questioned that horn has its place in jazz.
Schneider’s goal is to teach at the college level. He works at a couple high schools teaching brass technique as well as playing as much as he can.
He also has more ideas for albums. “I’m going to write,” Schneider said, “and see what happens.”
