Scene Maker Q+A: Larry McDonough is a lawyer by day, a jazz pianist by night

By day, Larry McDonough is a pro bono lawyer who helps needy people avoid eviction from their rental units. By night, McDonough is a jazz pianist who might make $100 for playing the music he loves.

McDonough has been getting paid for playing music since he was at Bloomington Lincoln High School in the 1970s. After earning a degree in music education from the University of Minnesota, he taught high school band for a few years before deciding he could make more impact by being a public-interest lawyer.

The St. Paul resident still teaches a couple of private students and gives lectures on different aspects of music and the industry. His next lecture is July 18 at Minnesota Original Music Festival in St. Peter. His next gigs include accompanying jazz singer Katia Cardenas Friday and Saturday at Smack Shack in Edina.

In an interview this week, McDonough — whose resume includes 11 albums under his own name and stints with many Minnesota bands from Danny’s Reasons to Bozo Allegro — talked about how his two jobs balance each other. Here are excerpts.

Q: How many different configurations and groups do you play in?

A: About five or six. I mostly perform with the Larry McDonough Quartet and then I have another project called the Trios Trio where we have a trio that plays music of famous jazz trios but we do more obscure works. Those are the main gigs but I occasionally play with other groups depending on my schedule. There’s an indie rock band called Hi Fi, a rock band called Whiskey Burn, a funk band called Funkin’ Right, a Steely Dan cover band called Steely Ann and then I sub in other bands like the Good, the Bad and the Funky or Drums of Navarone. I also do solo gigs, usually volunteering for a nice bleeding heart liberal nonprofit that I like. I started playing some Bill Evans solo concerts. And the Larry McDonough Quartet has a jazz film and live music series at the Parkway Theater, two to three times a year. We did “‘Round Midnight” in June and will do “The Fabulous Baker Boys” in the fall or winter.

Q: Tell me about your tribute shows to two of the jazz greats, Miles Davis and Bill Evans?

A: I don’t consider them tribute shows; I consider them a celebration of lives. When I do a show, we’re going to familiarize an audience with the material without doing a replication of it. I’ve been listening to Bill Evans since I was a kid. I had a librarian at my elementary school who got me interested in checking out LPs of Bill and Miles. I saw Bill play live three times at the Longhorn [in downtown Minneapolis]. I really liked his classical approach to piano.

What I like about doing a celebration is introducing the audiences to the music and some of the contents. I’m a teacher. I started teaching piano lessons when I was 15. When “Kind of Blue” came out in 1959, Miles Davis got beat up by a cop outside the Village Vanguard [in New York City] because he wouldn’t move down the street when a cop said to move down the street. Miles said, “That’s me on the marquee.” The cop said, “I don’t care.” He arrested him, and Miles did get acquitted. This story tells you a little bit about Miles, about racism. He has a darker view of the world.

Q: And you went to research Evans at his archives in Louisiana?

A: There was a music reviewer in Amsterdam who introduced me to Bill’s widow. Nenette gave me an introduction to the curator of the Bill Evans Archives that’s in Southeastern Louisiana University. Back in 2009, I was down there for a conference, so I spent a day at the archive. It’s not particularly glamourous; it’s just a bunch of boxes. But it was fun to see his senior program to see what he was playing going on 21 years old. There was a manuscript book; it had the chords to the tunes and the bass lines but no melody. It seemed like something he wrote for a bass player.

Q: How much do you practice piano every day?

A: I don’t practice every day. I probably practice every couple of days. At this age, I’m 68, I’m not working on technique as much as I’m either playing music to calm my nerves or cheer me up or to get ready for a gig.

Q: When did you start playing piano?

A: I think I was in third grade when I started piano lessons, I started clarinet when I was in fifth grade and trumpet in sixth grade. I learned as a young kid, the more versatile you can be in terms of art forms and instruments, the more work you’re going to get.

Q: How did you get into jazz?

A: My folks had Mitch Miller and Mantovani around the house. I started to listen to rock ‘n’ roll like other kids. I played trumpet and I played piano and this librarian said — I was a nerd — “Come check out [Davis’] ‘Kind of Blue’ and we’ve got the New York Times here.” I really liked the Bill Evans piano playing on “Kind of Blue.” So I asked for another album. She gave me [Evans’] “Portrait of Jazz” and I just fell in love with what Bill was doing. From there, I started to listen to Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and all the other piano players.

Q: When and why did you decide to go to law school?

A: In the ‘80s. I was [teaching] at Edison High School in north Minneapolis and the neighborhood then was predominantly white, Eastern European descent, blue-collar. The families had more struggles than the kids learning how to play music. I thought I’d look for a day job where I’d be a little more connected with helping people with things that were more basic or fundamental to life. So I went to law school with the idea that I’d be some sort of public-interest lawyer. Didn’t really know what that meant. I represented poor people trying to stop evictions or get on a good benefits program. That’s the kind of work I’ve done ever since. That’s my day job.

I’ve kept these parallel careers. I didn’t do a lot of music in late ‘80s and ‘90s when my kids were little. In ‘99 or 2000, I did my first solo CD called “Small Steps.” In the process I realized I did have a voice for composition and interpretation. I’m still a good jobber [playing in other people’s bands] but I decided to focus on doing my thing.

Q: How do you juggle your daytime and nighttime jobs?

A: I’m good at compartmentalized thinking, shifting from one thing to the next thing and not missing too much of a beat in the process. I think they’ve done well hand in hand. The work I do by day can be kind of dark. Helping someone who is relatively poor have their life get a little better or a little less worse, it’s not making massive changes in their trajectory. It can seem like an unending mission to do that kind of work. I’ve found music to be both good therapy for it — you cleanse your head a little bit — and also some of that darkness influences the interpretation in the jazz world.