Jackie McLean

Jackie McLean (died 2006) was an American alto saxophonist rooted in bebop and hard bop, noted for a sharp, penetrating tone and blues-tinged phrasing. Across the 1950s and 1960s he moved toward more adventurous harmonic and modal approaches, bringing some avant-garde elements into a hard bop framework; he recorded extensively for the Blue Note label and later worked in jazz education at the Hartt School of the University of Hartford.