The McNeil-Levy Rapport

When John McNeil, the esteemed trumpeter/composer, recorded his original tune “Lose My Number” in 2001, it had no lyrics. “It’s the opposite of a love song, a no-love-lost song,” McNeil said recently. “I had that concept, even though it was an instrumental. I never even thought about putting words to it.”

McNeil, 72, likens the composition to something by Ornette Coleman. As in some of Coleman’s music, “there’s this happy triad kind of thing going on,” even though the triads