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Steve Coleman | |
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 Steve Coleman in Paris, July 2004 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Steven Douglas Coleman |
| Born | September 20, 1956 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Genres | Jazz, avant-garde, M-Base |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, composer, bandleader |
| Instrument(s) | Saxophone |
| Labels | JMT, Pangaea, Novus, BMG, Label Bleu, Pi |
Steve Coleman (born September 20, 1956) [1] is an American saxophonist, composer, bandleader and music theorist. In 2014, he was named a MacArthur Fellow.
Steve Coleman was born and grew up in South Side, Chicago. [1] He started playing alto saxophone at the age of 14. Coleman attended Illinois Wesleyan University for two years,. [1] followed by a transfer to Roosevelt University (Chicago Musical College).
Coleman moved to New York in 1978 and worked in big bands such as the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, Slide Hampton's big band, Sam Rivers' Studio Rivbea Orchestra, and briefly in Cecil Taylor's big band. [2] Shortly thereafter, Coleman began working as a sideman with David Murray, Doug Hammond, Dave Holland, Michael Brecker and Abbey Lincoln. For the first four years in New York Coleman spent a good deal of time playing in the streets and in tiny clubs with a band that he put together with trumpeter Graham Haynes, the group that would evolve into the ensemble Steve Coleman and Five Elements that would serve as the main ensemble for Coleman's activities. In this group, he developed his concept of improvisation within nested looping structures. Coleman collaborated with other young African-American musicians such as Cassandra Wilson and Greg Osby, and they founded the so-called M-Base movement. [1]
Coleman regards the music tradition he is coming from as African Diasporan culture with essential African retentions, especially a certain kind of sensibility. He searched for these roots and their connections of contemporary African-American music. For that purpose, he travelled to Ghana at the end of 1993 and came in contact with (among others) the Dagomba (Dagbon) people whose traditional drum music uses very complex polyrhythm and a drum language that allows sophisticated speaking through music (described and recorded by John Miller Chernoff [3] ). Thus, Coleman was animated to think about the role of music and the transmission of information in non-western cultures. He wanted to collaborate with musicians who were involved in traditions which come out of West Africa. One of his main interests was the Yoruba tradition (predominantly out of western Nigeria) which is one of the Ancient African Religions underlying Santería (Cuba and Puerto Rico), Vodou (Haiti) and Candomblé (Bahia, Brazil). In Cuba, Coleman found the group Afrocuba de Matanzas who specialized in preserving various styles of rumba as well as all in Cuba persisting African traditions which are mixed together under the general title of Santería (Abakuá, Arara, Congo, Yoruba). In 1996 Coleman along with a group of 10 musicians as well as dancers and the group Afrocuba de Matanzas worked together for 12 days, performed at the Havana Jazz Festival, and recorded the album The Sign and the Seal. In 1997 Coleman took a group of musicians from America and Cuba to Senegal to collaborate and participate in musical and cultural exchanges with the musicians of the local Senegalese group Sing Sing Rhythm. He also led his group Five Elements to the south of India in 1998 to participate in a cultural exchange with different musicians in the carnatic music tradition.
In September 2014, Coleman was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for "refreshing traditional templates to create distinctive and innovative work in ... jazz." [4] [5]
With Doug Hammond
With Dave Holland
With Thad Jones/Mel Lewis
With Mel Lewis
With Abbey Lincoln With Errol Parker
With The Roots
With Cassandra Wilson
| With others
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The term "M-Base" is used in several ways. In the 1980s, a loose collective of young African American musicians including Steve Coleman, Graham Haynes, Cassandra Wilson, Geri Allen, Robin Eubanks, and Greg Osby emerged in Brooklyn with a new sound and specific ideas about creative expression. Using a term coined by Steve Coleman, they called these ideas "M-Base-concept" and critics have used this term to categorize this scene's music as a jazz style. But Coleman stressed "M-Base" doesn't denote a musical style but a way of thinking about creating music. As famous musicians did in the past, he also refuses the word "jazz" as a label for his music and the music tradition represented by musicians like John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong, etc. However, the musicians of the M-Base movement, which also included dancers and poets, strived for common creative musical languages, so their early recordings show many similarities reflecting their common ideas, the experiences of working together, and their similar cultural background. To label this kind of music, jazz critics have established the word "M-Base" as a jazz style for lack of a better term, distorting its original meaning.
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The Batá drum is a double-headed drum shaped like an hourglass with one end larger than the other. The percussion instrument is still used for its original purpose as it is one of the most important drums in the yoruba land and used for traditional and religious activities among the Yoruba. Batá drums have been used in the religion known as Santería in Cuba since the 1800s, and in Puerto Rico and the United States since the 1950s. Today, they are also used for semi-religious musical entertainment in Nigeria and in secular, popular music. The early function of the batá was as a drum of different gods, of royalty, of ancestors and a drum of politicians, impacting all spheres of life in Yoruba land.
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