George Coleman: Live At Smalls Jazz Club

Tenor saxophonist George Coleman, one week past his eighty-seventh birthday when Live at Smalls Jazz Club was recorded in March 2022, has not yielded an inch to Father Time, skating up and down his horn with the awareness and agility of someone many years his junior. It is entirely appropriate that this album should be a part of the Smalls Living Legend series, as Coleman easily qualifies for that honor.

Before appraising the music, a brief side note: Coleman was live as can be, and he and his quartet were performing at Smalls Jazz Club in New York City, but no audience was present, unless they were quieter than your average mouse. Speaking of the quartet, its other members are pianist Spike Wilner, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Joe Farnsworth, and rhythm sections simply aren't built much better than that.

As for the material, it too is first-class, with five greatly admired standards complementing Antonio Carlos Jobim's upbeat "Meditation," Coleman's sunny "Blues for Smalls" and Miles Davis' flag-waving "Four" (based on another standard, "How About You") whose soft and supple introduction morphs into a full-on swing mode. After opening with "Four," Coleman and his mates rephrase Mack Gordon and Harry Warren's "At Last" and Rodgers and Hart's "My Funny Valentine" before saluting "Meditation."

"Blues for Smalls" is next, followed by Hoagy Carmichael's "The Nearness of You," John Kander and Fred Ebb's paean to the city, "New York, New York," and Marvin Fisher's "When Sunny Gets Blue." As noted, there is nothing displeasing in that storehouse. The quartet plays flawlessly as a unit, while solos, needless to say, are in the best of hands. Sound quality is exemplary, playing time (seventy-two minutes) more than generous. At a time of life when most people are happy to be alive and couch-bound, Coleman reaffirms his mastery by blowing up a storm while showing younger generations that experience can indeed be an indispensable teacher.

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