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Ira Coleman

Ira Coleman was born in Stockholm, Sweden. Raised in Southern France, Ira thereafter lived in Germany for fourteen years. While in Germany, Ira Coleman studied double bass at Cologne’s “Hochschule für Musik” and subsequently came a move to the US to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston.

“I have very strong ties to Europe,” says Ira who is fluent in French and German. “My mother was Swedish and a famous silversmith and designer, and my father was a painter and graphic artist from Baltimore. The place to go was Paris. My parents met many expatriate artists, writers and musicians.” Among visitors to Ira’s childhood home were Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Ray Charles, Charlie Mingus and Chester Himes. Ira got his inspiration at an early age, though he didn’t actually pick up a bass until he was 19 years old.

“The bass fits my character,” says Ira, who graduated from Berklee College of Music in 1985. “In most musical genres the bass is the pivotal center piece, the instrument which provides a discrete and clear foundation, and I enjoy the many challenges its function poses.”

Ira’s resumé tells the story. Over the years, Ira has worked with such well-known figures as Cab Calloway, Freddie Hubbard, Betty Carter, Branford Marsalis, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Jessye Norman, Plácido Domingo and Sting. He was musical director for vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater and toured with her internationally from 2002 until 2009.

One night he’s on the stage at Carnegie Hall playing in a tribute to African-American culture. The next morning he is on a plane to Europe to collaborate on a recording or heading to Japan for a jazz festival. As comfortable playing Jamaican rhythms as he is accompanying a gospel choir or performing in a Jazz trio, this professional bass player has built an international reputation for versatility.

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10
Album Review

John Esposito: Blues For Outlaw Hearts

Read "Blues For Outlaw Hearts" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


Pianist John Esposito, the head honcho at Sunjump Records, has made part of his life's mission to feature underappreciated musicians. Guitarist Sangeeta Michael Berardi, who passed in 2024, was one of them. Berardi owed a big debt to saxophonist John Coltrane. This can be heard--leaving no doubt--on his Sunjump outing Earthship, released in 2008. In the mode of Coltrane, the music was soaring, seemingly divinely inspired. John Esposito held down the piano chair. No easy task considering the relentless uplift ...

3
Album Review

Samuel Blaser: Routes

Read "Routes" reviewed by Chris May


The Jamaican trombonist Don Drummond (1934-1969), the inspiration for Routes, was in certain respects a mid-twentieth Jamaican parallel of the New Orleans cornetist Buddy Bolden (1877-1931). Bolden pioneered jazz in the US, Drummond in Jamaica. Both achieved mythic proportions during their lifetimes and both their legends endure. Both, tragically, spent their final years in what were then called insane asylums. One difference between the two musicians is that, while no recording of Bolden has survived, if indeed ...

10
Album Review

Joe Chambers: Dance Kobina

Read "Dance Kobina" reviewed by Chris May


Drummer, composer and sometime vibraphonist Joe Chambers secured his place in jazz history going on six decades ago, though you might not guess it from listening to this album. In the mid-1960s, he was the drummer on a string of historic Blue Note albums recorded by Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter and Bobby Hutcherson, among others, and also on a series of important albums Archie Shepp made for Impulse!, including the landmark Fire Music (1965). Given the ...

132
Album Review

Various: Thank You, Joe!

Read "Thank You, Joe!" reviewed by AAJ Staff


Arkadia has a good thing going for it: tribute albums. Interestingly, Thank You, Joe! is Arkadia's first CD of appreciation extended to a living jazz legend. Previous honorees have included John Coltrane, Duke Ellington and Gerry Mulligan.Thank goodness that Arkadia had the insight to honor Henderson. Such a tribute raises the question, however, of how many other living jazz innovators should be honored: Lucky Thompson, Ray Brown, Dave Brubeck, Jon Hendricks, Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Hutcherson, Horace Silver, Roy ...

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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Blues For Outlaw...

Sunjump Records
2024

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Laura

Sunjump Records
2024

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Routes

Enja
2023

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Les Esprits Oubliés

Les Productions Art and Soul
2023

buy

Dance Kobina

Blue Note Records
2022

buy

Friday - LIVE at the...

Arkadia Records
2022

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