George Coleman at The Side Door Jazz Club

After a rigorous apprenticeship in his native Memphis (including a stint with B.B. King), George Coleman rose to jazz stardom for his solid, soulful playing with the Miles Davis Quintet of 1963–64 and his memorable performances on the classic Miles albums Seven Steps to Heaven (1963), My Funny Valentine (1964) and Four & More (1966). He’s also gigged and/or recorded with Max Roach, Booker Little, Slide Hampton, and Cedar Walton, and was named a “Jazz Master” by the National Endowment for the Arts in April 2015. As a leader, the saxophonist has released such bracing discs as Amsterdam After Dark (Timeless, 1979), My Horns of Plenty (Dreyfus, 1991), and from 2016, A Master Speaks (Smoke Sessions)...

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After a rigorous apprenticeship in his native Memphis (including a stint with B.B. King), George Coleman rose to jazz stardom for his solid, soulful playing with the Miles Davis Quintet of 1963–64 and his memorable performances on the classic Miles albums Seven Steps to Heaven (1963), My Funny Valentine (1964) and Four & More (1966). He’s also gigged and/or recorded with Max Roach, Booker Little, Slide Hampton, and Cedar Walton, and was named a “Jazz Master” by the National Endowment for the Arts in April 2015. As a leader, the saxophonist has released such bracing discs as Amsterdam After Dark (Timeless, 1979), My Horns of Plenty (Dreyfus, 1991), and from 2016, A Master Speaks (Smoke Sessions). “If you're playing jazz and you got an audience, play somethingthey can enjoy,” George Coleman told the Memphis Commercial Appeal in 2016. “Jazz is a mixture of everything. You can get to all the areas of the music if you explore them along with your audience.”

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