But even after decades of artistic success, he's a mystery to many who follow the jazz and improvised-music scenes. He is as well-respected among fellow improvisers as any living player but remains on the periphery of outsider music. His unwillingness to compromise has made him something of a musical loner, often recording and performing solo or with low-profile sidemen. Like late-period Coltrane, McPhee's music is about seeking new frontiers rather than recovering old territory. Unlike the late sax man, McPhee doesn't necessarily feel bound to jazz.
Jazz is so vague and so broad.
The music is very open to discovery. McPhee's music is steeped in the traditions of jazz but often stripped of the genre's conventional ingredients, such as swing. It is a very different approach from that of artists such as saxophonist David S. Ware or Roy Campbell, who, as Coltrane once did, stretch the borders of jazz from the inside out. I thought if anybody was going to make a term descriptive of what I do, I better be the one to do it. Because McPhee often performs solo or without a rhythm section, he has the ability to roam freely, with parts going in unpredictable directions.