For McPherson, curiosity and creativity go hand in hand

As a teen, altoist Charles McPherson learned to value the arts and sciences.

Charles McPherson's fluency in the musical vocabulary created by Charlie Parker is so pronounced that he played the alto saxophone parts on the soundtrack for Clint Eastwood's 1988 biopic of the late jazz legend, "Bird."

While there's no denying that he's one of the world's most prodigious bebop-influenced altoists, McPherson absorbed another enduring lesson from Parker, about the power of knowledge to expand an improviser's consciousness.

Beyond a brief teenage encounter with the polymathic modern jazz patriarch, McPherson gleaned Parker's expansive intellectual purview secondhand on the Detroit scene from Bird associates like pianist Barry Harris and vocalist Sheila Jordan.

"Sheila said Bird was very much aware of modern classical music and modern painting, Chagall and Miró," says McPherson, who makes a rare Boston appearance at Scullers tomorrow. "He would tell them, there's a connection between all the arts and you're supposed to know these things, too."

McPherson is still best known for his long-running association with another modern jazz giant, bassist Charles Mingus. From 1960 through the early '70s, McPherson was a regular member of Mingus's Jazz Workshop, a tenure surpassed only by drummer Dannie Richmond. While the demanding bandleader was famous for lashing out unexpectedly at his sidemen, the quiet and self-possessed McPherson found a way to coexist with the volatile bassist.

"He was a difficult person to work for," McPherson says from his home in San Diego. "He was confrontational. But some kind of way I learned how to deal with him. He had a sense of fairness in a way. He didn't pay badly, and he didn't [cheat] people. He could see disingenuousness immediately."

Though Mingus featured McPherson on a number of classic recordings, the long relationship with the visionary jazz composer didn't serve as much of a career springboard. McPherson made a series of fine albums in the 1960s and '70s for indie jazz labels such as Prestige, Xanadu, and Mainstream, often featuring his Detroit compatriot Barry Harris. But his most recent US release, "Manhattan Nocturne" (Arabesque), a typically scorching quintet session featuring pianist Mulgrew Miller, was released in 1998.

The fact that he's been based in San Diego since the late 1970s hasn't exactly helped boost his profile, as he works infrequently on the West Coast. On the New York scene, however, Jazz at Lincoln Center has made sure he remains a visible and esteemed presence, often featuring the altoist on thematic programs and as a leader at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola.

It's not McPherson's style to complain about a lack of exposure. For the most part he speaks with his horn, possessing a bright, lithe, buoyant tone. He has a knack for writing exquisite ballads, and when he's not working on his music he's often serving as an informal mentor for some of Southern California's most gifted players. In many ways he has passed on Parker's ethic through the force of his own example.

Rob Schneiderman, a brilliant pianist who grew up in San Diego and spent years in New York accompanying jazz stars such as J.J. Johnson, Art Farmer, and Chet Baker, credits McPherson with sparking his passion for mathematics. He's still active on the New York jazz scene, but after earning a doctorate from the University of California-Berkeley specializing in low dimensional topology, he's a mathematics professor at City University of New York's Lehman College.

"Charles loves talking about Einstein's theories," says Schneiderman, who features McPherson on his recent album, "Glass Enclosure" (Reservoir). "I started playing with him after he moved to San Diego, and we were always having these interesting conversations after gigs."

When McPherson describes his musical upbringing in mid-1950s Detroit, he makes it clear that curiosity about the world was considered part and parcel of a jazz musician's creative life. He vividly recalls a time when he showed his C-laden report card to Harris, who let him know that his artistic ambition couldn't be separated from intellectual discipline.

"He said if you really want to play this music well, you can't be average, and that just hit home," McPherson says. "For the first time somebody I admired was saying that, and it changed my whole life. The little group I hung out with, in order to be hip, you also needed to know about Bertrand Russell, Nietzsche, Spinoza. Bird could sit down and talk about quantum mechanics. Our notion of hip was a broad thing, and Bird's the guy who started to make it that way."