Career
At the age of thirteen, Coleman started studying piano with Jaki Byard. At the New England Conservatory he studied with George Russell, Donald Martino and Malcolm Peyton.
Coleman's collaborators over the years have included guitarist Elliott Sharp, trumpeter Dave Douglas, accordion player Guy Klucevsek, composer David Shea, former Captain Beefheart bandmember Gary Lucas, classical and Klezmer clarinetist David Krakauer, guitarist Marc Ribot, bassist Greg Cohen, drummer Joey Baron and saxophonist Roy Nathanson.
Coleman's own compositions and solo work reflect his interest and exploration of his Jewish background and Jewish musics. His groups Sephardic Tinge and Selfhaters in the '90s explored both the lively, rich and exuberant musical legacy as well as darkly described the lamentation of a minority culture in Diaspora.
Sephardic Tinge have toured extensively all over the world and Europe three times.
Coleman's Disco by Night is a work inspired by his visit to his family's homeland of Yugoslavia and was his first major solo record released by Japan's Avant label in 1992.Shmutsige Magnaten, in which he played the songs of Yiddish folk composer Mordechai Gebirtig, a victim of the Holocaust was also released by Tzadik Records in 2006. It was recorded live at midnight in the oldest synagogue of Kraków, Poland, a few steps away from Gebirtig's birthplace during the annual Kraków Jewish Music Festival in 2005.
His duo albums, The Coming Great Millennium, Lobster & Friend and I Could've Been A Drum with Roy Nathanson, mostly explore the fun, frivolous and joyous alongside the nostalgic hearts and minds of Jews in modern and old America. These recordings typify Coleman's "free" playing style as well as his multi-instrumental capabilities with him also operating samplers, trombones, percussion as well as piano and voice. Coleman and Nathanson have performed all over the U.S. and Europe.
Coleman is also an accomplished composer with many works being commissioned by numerous ensembles including the 2006 work Pushy Blueness which was released on Tzadik Records.
Read more about this topic: Anthony Coleman
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