This curious story begins normally enough in the middle of the 1990s in a Seattle record shop. Local vinyl lover and collector Kristian St. Clair enters Cellophane Square and begins to browse the jazz section. A two-LP set catches his eye. It's part of Impulse's Great Arrangers series. The cover is black with halftone dot illustrations of two cool-looking men: Gil Evans (the arranger of Miles Davis's masterpiece Sketches of Spain), whom he recognizes, and Gary McFarland, whom he does not. Had the former not been attached to the latter, St. Clair would never have bought the record and discovered the musician who would change the course of his life.
Gary McFarland is an almost completely forgotten jazz vibraphonist, singer, composer, and arranger who made a pretty big name for himself and worked with some of the biggest names of 1960s jazz (Bill Evans, John Lewis, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Lena Horne). McFarland was hardly an outsider. His records were reviewed and taken seriously, and he frequently appeared on national television. If you fear death like I do, then you will understand why the sad story of McFarland's rise and fall is so upsetting…
