Hart McNee, New Orleans flutist, saxophonist, dies at 66
Times Picayune July 14, 2009


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Hart McNee, raspy-voiced bass flutist and baritone saxophonist who played with innumerable
musical legends and made more than 40 appearances at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival,
died Tuesday morning of liver cancer. He was 66.

Soon after he moved to New Orleans in 1990, Mr. McNee became a fixture in the Bywater where,
accompanied by golden retriever Auto, he would sip coffee, read the newspaper and stroll the
neighborhood clad in his trademark tropical shirt and fedora.

Jonathan Freilich, who played with Mr. McNee in The Naked Orchestra and Los Vecinos, found him
deft at improvisation, able to assert his personality within the music. "Hart was a master of
that, " Freilich said. "He could be very playful, contemplative or tough."

In New Orleans, Mr. McNee recorded with his own band and played with the Storyville Stompers
brass band, Mas Mamones, Moyuba, Coco Robicheaux and John Boutte.

On Mardi Gras, Mr. McNee traditionally played baritone sax with the Bywater Brass Band in the St.
Cecilia walking parade. This year, it looked like illness would prevent him from participating in
that gig. "The day before, he almost couldn't walk home from the coffee shop, " said Benjamin
Lyons, a local record producer and longtime friend. Mr. McNee played the entire route and, as
always, was boastful of the volume he had produced on the big horn.

"There should have been studies on the man. He had a fortitude about him that was immense, " said
drummer and bandmate Dave Sobel, noting that in early 2005, McNee's doctors diagnosed his cancer
and gave him six months to live.

A red-diaper baby raised in Chicago by University of Illinois professor and artist John D. McNee
Jr. and bookbinder Peggy McNee, Mr. McNee enrolled in college nearby at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison where, he always said, he "sporadically attended" classes and got his start in
music, playing sax with both Boz Scaggs and Steve Miller. He would play with Scaggs again in San
Francisco in the late 1960s.

Drafted for the Vietnam War, he was "a mediocre soldier, " he wrote, but became "a pacifist with
a deep interest in war" who was fond of the military strategy of Hannibal in the Pyrenees and of
World War II German Gen. Erwin Rommel in North Africa. His love of artillery was also apparent in
his vivid 8-by-4-foot paintings which often depicted a menacing Italian tank alongside great apes
or favorite New Orleans corners.

Before moving to New Orleans, Mr. McNee lived for decades in San Francisco and played with
bluesmen and revivalists including Otis Rush, John Lee Hooker and Michael Bloomfield.

Before his death, Mr. McNee's friends asked how he wanted his tombstone to read. "Greatest flute
player in the world, " he said, "and the world's loudest baritone (sax) player."

Survivors include his former wife, Kate McNee; a son, Felix MacNee of San Francisco; and a
daughter, Lily McNee.

A memorial will be held Saturday at 5 p.m. at the Sound Cafe, 2700 Chartres St.

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