Anthony Coleman is a composer-keyboardist who has performed and recorded throughout the world. His projects include the piano trio Sephardic Tinge, which has released three discs: Sephardic Tinge, Morenica, and Our Beautiful Garden Is Open (Tzadik) and has performed at the Sarajevo Jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, Saalfelden Festival, and the Krakow and Vienna Jewish Culture Festivals. His Selfhaters Orchestra has issued two CDs: Selfhaters and The Abysmal Richness of the Infinite Proximity of the Same (Tzadik).
Hollis '69 / Good Morning / Feb. 11, 1999/ Hollis '69 II / A Day
Anthony Coleman - piano, Sean Conly - bass, Satoshi Takeishi - drums
Jaki (John) Byard (June 15, 1922 in Worcester, Massachusetts - February 11, 1999 in New York City) was an American jazz pianist and composer who also played trumpet and saxophone, among several other instruments. He was noteworthy for his eclectic style, incorporating everything from ragtime and stride to free jazz. In describing his contribution to the Phil Woods album Musique du Bois, National Public Radio described him as "one of the most compelling and versatile pianists in jazz".
Byard began playing professionally at the age of 15. After serving in World War II he toured with Earl Bostic in the late 1940s, and, by now based in Boston, made his recording debut with Charlie Mariano in 1951. Later, he was a member of the bands of Herb Pomeroy (1952-55, recording in 1957) and Maynard Ferguson (1959-62).
Moving to New York, Byard recorded extensively with Charles Mingus in the periods 1962 to 1964 and 1970, touring Europe with him in 1964. He also made important recordings as a sideman with Eric Dolphy, Booker Ervin and Sam Rivers. As a leader, he recorded a string of albums for the Prestige label during the 1960s. He fronted an occasional big band, the Apollo Stompers. He taught at the New England Conservatory, Manhattan School of Music, Hartt School of Music and the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music.[2]
Byard was shot dead in 1999. The circumstances surrounding his death have not been determined.
Jaki Byard was my most important mentor. I met him when I was 12 years old.He was my principal piano teacher. And it was due to his influence that I came to study at NEC.
I went to him because I was already interested in Ragtime Piano, and was beginning to become interested in Early Jazz piano (East Coast Stride, as well as the music of Jelly Roll Morton). I was also aware enough, however, to realize that I wouldn't always want to express myself solely through archaic genres. When I heard Jaki play, I was amazed by his ability to leap from the oldest to the newest styles of Jazz in a brilliantly kaleidoscopic way. But I was also struck by how he made all of these genre references his own. His playing is instantly recognizable.
Once at NEC, I had gradually less and less contact with Jaki. We would meet occasionally, and I also wrote for his school Big Band. He was always friendly, and never expressed anything negative about my "defection" to the Composition Department (a whole epic story in itselfŠ). But I wonder if something about this secretly hurt him. He had been incredibly generous with me, taking me to sessions and introducing me to Earl Hines and Charles Mingus. In many ways, he treated me like a peer.
His violent death came as a terrible shock.
Hollis, Queens was where Jaki lived and worked and taught. 1969 was my first year of High School, when I really was able to start taking this Musical Life seriously. Feb. 11, 1999 was the day Jaki was killed.
Flaubert/Sofa/Sentence
Anthony Coleman - piano, electric organ, Ashley Paul - alto saxophone, objects, voice, Eli Keszler - percussion
Quelquefois, quand je me trouve vide, quand l'expression se refuse, quand, après avoir griffonné de longues pages, je découvre n'avoir pas fait une phrase, je tombe sur mon divan et j'y reste hébété dans un marais intérieur d'ennui. Je me hais et je m'accuse de cette démence d'orgueil qui me fait haleter après la chimère.
Flaubert, letter to Louise Colet - Croisset, Saturday, April 24, 1852
(Sometimes, when I am empty, when words don't come, when I find I haven't written a single sentence after scribbling whole pages, I collapse on my couch and lie there dazed, bogged in a swamp of despair, hating myself and blaming myself for this demented pride which makes me pant after a chimera)
Eli Keszler and Ashley Paul are (I'm very proud to say) my former students. Since leaving school, they have embarked upon the creation of a body of work (together and separately) that has already had wide, even global impact. Even though we do a lot of projects together, I've wanted to write something specifically for the three of us for some time.
Aioli
Anthony Coleman - piano
Matter of Operation
Survivors Breakfast: Fausto Sierakowski- alto sax, Zoe Christiansen- clarinet, accordion, Joelle Wagner-bassoon, Nigel Taylor- trumpet, Cale Israel- trombone, Jason Belcher- baritone horn, Leah Hennessy- voice, piano, Andrew Hock, Arian Shafiee- guitars, Eden MacAdam- Somer, Mia Friedman, Diamanda Dramm, Abigale Reisman- violins, Simon Hanes, Simon Willson- basses, Andria Nicodemou- vibraphone, Andy Fordyce- drums, percussion. Anthony Coleman- conductor
Survivors Breakfast! I remember once, long ago (Google isn't helping) reading an article about the Mark Morris Dance Company where Morris spoke glowingly about how wonderfully, absurdly mismatched his company was. I love that image. I've always been fascinated by the idea of an ensemble's functioning as a kind of paradigmatic society where, as Terry Eagleton says, writing about Shakespeare's The Tempest, individuals are "not wholly active, shapers of their individual lives, nor wholly passive, parts of a larger design in which they are merely manipulated objects; human life is in some way an interpenetration of the twoŠa fusion of spontaneity and aware responsibility".
I've aimed at this for a long time. All my fascination with Ellington and his band, with the films of John Ford and Preston Sturges and their stock companiesŠtrying to find that balance. Well, now I have my weekly work with Survivors Breakfast, and I feel like some Bizarro World version of Haydn at Eszterhazy!
As a passionate misreader (in every way you can imagine) of John Cage and his work, I have taken his pet phrase (originally from Ananda Coomaraswamy) "art should imitate nature in her manner of operation" and messed it up a bit.
