Artist Spotlight

Bill McGee / Still Bill …

No mat­ter what your career path is; life hap­pens. Since his first solo CD, “This One’s 4U,” which was released in 2002, Bill McGee has sur­vived prostate can­cer, had nine grand­chil­dren, retired after thir­ty years as a school administrator/music teacher, released sev­en dif­fer­ent CD’s as the own­er of the 804 Music Group and has come around full cir­cle as a full time musi­cian and record­ing artist. He was giv­en his first trum­pet les­son in 1963, and says that he’s still learn­ing how to play the instru­ment. Bill record­ed for the first time in 1970, in a small stu­dio in Col­lege Park, Geor­gia with his class­mates from Mor­ris Brown Col­lege who went on to become “Brick” (Dazz). After receiv­ing two gold records and work­ing with stars like the O’Jays, Lou Rawls, Eve­lyn Cham­pagne King, and The Sug­ar Hill Gang, still learn­ing how to play is a bit of an under­state­ment. But after a nine-year hia­tus since the hit CD “Chase the Sun­set,” Bill wants every­body to know that he is “Still Bill,” a soul­ful, spir­i­tu­al, jazzy kind of trum­pet guy, who as an arranger and com­pos­er can hang with the best in the busi­ness. His fourth solo CD “Still Bill” comes with all fla­vors of Jazz, Soul and Gospel-Jazz. With a great cast of musi­cians and singers who all have what Bill likes to call “The Gift.” Much of the music is a reflec­tion on his ear­ly life as a young trum­pet play­er learn­ing songs like “Water­mel­on Man,” “Can­taloupe Island” and his first pub­lic solo, play­ing “Graz­ing in The Grass.” Anoth­er group of songs rep­re­sent his days as a young pro­fes­sion­al musi­cian with his group (Trussel) and being influ­enced by Man­drill’s “Fence Walk” per­formed by new com­er, Shawan­da Yeldell and “Chil­dren of the Night,” by the Styl­is­tics, per­formed beau­ti­ful­ly by Yolan­da “Yon­nie” Cole­man. We also find songs on this CD that reflect on a spir­i­tu­al jour­ney that rec­og­nizes, we all come “Full Cir­cle,” and in time learn to appre­ci­ate “The Gift” of music giv­en to us by the cre­ator. Here you find the beau­ti­ful uplift­ing melody of the orig­i­nal Gospel-Jazz com­po­si­tion “Just You Wait and See” per­formed by the mar­velous voice of Rev­erend Cora Har­vey Arm­strong, backed by the 804 Jazz All­stars. The CD “Still Bill” reflects the life and expe­ri­ence of the vet­er­an trum­pet play­er Bill McGee, who sin­cere­ly believes “To whom much is giv­en; much is required.”

“Still Bill” has eleven out­stand­ing songs all record­ed, mixed and mas­tered at 804Jazz by Bill McGee and his asso­ciates, Tom Reaves; a phe­nom­e­nal gui­tarist, singer, com­pos­er who has played on all four of Bill McGee’s CD’s, and Edward E.J. Shaw; a gift­ed drum­mer, bass play­er and pianist who in the ear­ly 90’s was in a high school band direct­ed by Bill McGee. Then there’s Bran­don Lane; a gift­ed com­pos­er, arranger, engi­neer, and bass play­er extra­or­di­naire. Bran­don at thir­teen (13) made his record­ing debut when he played on Bill’s cov­er of “I Wish” from the “Chase the Sun­set” CD. Along with these three fan­tas­tic musi­cians, the CD “Still Bill” fea­tures many, tal­ent­ed musi­cians and singers includ­ing Fox­Hole Records gui­tarist and the hus­band of Eve­lyn Cham­pagne King, Fred­die Fox; on Brandon’s com­po­si­tion “Full Cir­cle.” And there is the young prodi­gy, Ayinde Williams, the 18-year-old pianist who is fea­tured on the lead sin­gle “Can­taloupe and Water­mel­on.” A 2015 high school grad­u­ate, Ayinde stud­ied at Berklee Col­lege of music for three years in their sum­mer youth jazz pro­gram and was award­ed a schol­ar­ship to the New Eng­land Con­ser­va­to­ry of Music to study Jazz Per­for­mance. Bill says “it was an hon­or to fea­ture Ayinde on these two Her­bie Han­cock clas­sics because of the syn­er­gy and sim­i­lar­i­ties between a young Her­bie Han­cock and this fine young pianist who is most def­i­nite­ly head­ing for big­ger and bet­ter things as a record­ing artist.” Also, on the sin­gle is Ayinde’s younger broth­er, Kofi Shep­su on drums and sax man Dex­ter Moses on sax. Both of these tal­ent­ed guys are still in high school at the Appo­mat­tox Region­al Governor’s School of the Arts. All three have stud­ied for years with not­ed, Vir­ginia based, jazz edu­ca­tor Ash­by Ander­son.

Fea­tured on the CD are 804 Jazz label mates, James Saxs­mo Gates, on sax and Dr. Wel­don Hill, on piano. Both of these amaz­ing artist have been recent­ly nom­i­nat­ed on the first bal­lot for a Gram­my in com­po­si­tion and arrang­ing. Saxs­mo stands out once again on sev­er­al songs, but one in par­tic­u­lar is “I Know You Got Soul,” a funky G minor blues that will have you mov­ing your head from side to side. The CD “Still Bill” has so many great orig­i­nals and cov­er tunes that it is fun­da­men­tal­ly a start to fin­ish lis­ten, no jump­ing around here, what Bill calls “rid­ing music.” As the CD clos­es out you will hear an orig­i­nal com­po­si­tion writ­ten by Bill McGee to acknowl­edge the 2015 vis­it of Pope Fran­cis to the Unit­ed States. “Homi­ly for the Pope,” which was released on Face­book and YouTube as a trib­ute video and received thou­sands of views. Bill explained that while not Catholic, he admires Pope Fran­cis for being a sim­ple man of the peo­ple, the sick and the poor; a down to earth man who fol­lows the words of Christ as he min­is­ters to the peo­ple. In record­ing this song Bill stepped away from nor­mal stu­dio pro­duc­tion and record­ed it a Capel­la, in one take, keep­ing all of the flaws and nuances in an effort to reflect the pas­sion and real­ness of the moment. The music was added in post-pro­duc­tion. This song brings the CD to a sati­at­ing cul­mi­na­tion of excel­lence and inspi­ra­tion, and yes he is def­i­nite­ly “Still Bill.”