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Smoke Celebrates 10th Annual Coltrane Festival with George Coleman / Eric Alexander Quintet
by Nick Catalano
Four months after opening their new expanded room, Smoke Jazz & Supper Club co-owners Paul Stache and wife Molly Sparrow Johnson reinstituted their annual Coltrane festival with a show dubbed “Countdown 2023." Fittingly, the festival opening featured 87 year-old tenor legend and frequent headliner George Coleman together with saxophonist Eric Alexander and drummer Joe Farnsworth--members of the One For All group that helped establish Smoke as the iconic club that it has become. Originally opened in 1999, Smoke, ...
Continue ReadingGeorge Coleman: An Alternative Top Ten Albums
by Chris May
Born in Memphis, Tennessee, saxophonist George Coleman cut his teeth in local rhythm and blues bands and made his first recording, aged twenty, with B.B. King in 1955. That year he switched from alto to tenor, because King already had an alto player; but Coleman has continued to play the alto from time to time and, on a few occasions, the soprano, too. By 1957, after being spotted and recruited by drummer Max Roach, Coleman had arrived in New York ...
Continue ReadingGeorge Coleman: The Quiet Giant
by R.J. DeLuke
This interview was first published at All About Jazz on March 13, 2004. The tenor sax is one of the great emblems of jazz. From Coleman Hawkins to Lester Young. Byas and Ben Webster. Dexter, Trane. Getz and Sonny Rollins, on and on. And today's practitioners like Branford and Brecker, Joshua Redman and James Carter. Hundreds in between, and there among the many lies the immensely talented George Coleman. We've all enjoyed his fine work, but ...
Continue ReadingCooking with Coleman
by Patrick Burnette
In honor of a Record Store Day release of In Baltimore, we decided to devote an episode to tenor saxophonist George Coleman, who served tours of duty with Max Roach, Elvin Jones, and Miles Davis among others. The focus is on his mid-sixties to early seventies work as we ponder George's strengths and weaknesses and whether he's been given a fair shake in jazz history. Pop matters touches on several groups and then wanders over into a discussion of jazz ...
Continue ReadingGeorge Coleman: In Baltimore
by Mike Jurkovic
At 85, tenor saxophonist George Coleman has sat in on and made his presence mightily known on a host of flat out, hard bopping sessions beginning with B.B. King through Max Roach, Miles Davis, Booker Little, Lee Morgan, Herbie Hancock and . . . well, you should have got the larger picture by now. So to hear Coleman fronting his own quintet of exuberant merry men on the previously unreleased The George Coleman Quintet in Baltimore is a ...
Continue ReadingThe George Coleman Quintet: In Baltimore
by Pierre Giroux
Tenor saxophonist George Coleman is an artist who plays with both proficiency and comprehension, but has been under-recognized as a major figure in post-bop jazz. In this Reel To Real 180 gram LP release, co-produced by Cory Weeds and Zev Feldman, Coleman and his cohorts trumpeter Danny Moore, pianist Albert Dailey, bassist Larry Ridley and drummer Harold White showcase their talents in a previously unreleased live session recorded at the Famous Ballroom in Baltimore MD on May 23, 1971.
Continue ReadingEric Reed Quartet, Henry Grimes and George Coleman Quartet
by Peter Jurew
Eric Reed Quartet SMOKE Jazz & Supper Club New York, NY October 2, 2016 The gifted pianist and composer Eric Reed plays at times with a lightning-quick, cat-like touch, at others with slow, deep resonance, lush and lyrical. He can change from one to the other in the nanosecond it takes his brain to command his deft fingers; the sounds that pour out of the big black Steinway piano are joyous, sad, ...
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