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Todd Coolman

Upon graduating from the Indiana University School of Music with a Bachelor of Music degree in Doublebass Performance in 1975, I had $30, a bass, a ’66 Volvo and a job offer from the Orquestra Symphonica Nationale de Mexico in Jalapa, Veracruz, Mexico. Naturally, I took the job. Overall, it was a great experience.

After a year I had saved a small nest egg and moved to Chicago (near where I was raised) and began a fledgling career as a free-lance bassist. Ironically, my first job offer was to play electric bass three nights a week with a Brazilian band in a Mexican restaurant! Over the course of the next two years, I gradually became more involved in the Chicago jazz scene and gained a great deal of valuable experience as a member of a "house trio" at a jazz club where a different "big name" would come to town and perform with us. During a nine month period I was in this "jazz university" I performed with some real masters including, Sonny Stitt, Zoot Sims, Buddy DeFranco, Clark Terry, Marian McPartland, and the like. I was 22 years of age and extremely lucky to have been in the right place at the right time.

Many of the aforementioned artists encouraged me to move to New York and become part of arguably the most important jazz scene in the United States. Naively, I took their advice (in retrospect, I probably was not ready) and in the fall of 1978 my wife Darla and our two cats threw all of our stuff into a U Haul truck and moved to the Big Apple.

Since moving to New York, I have been blessed to have performed, toured world-wide and/or recorded with a virtual "who's who" of jazz artists including Horace Silver, Gerry Mulligan, Al Haig, Stan Getz, Benny Golson, Art Farmer, Tommy Flanagan, Lionel Hampton, Benny Goodman, Hal Galper, and numerous others. Today, I actively perform with an impressive array of artists including: James Moody, Ahmad Jamal, Slide Hampton, Jimmy Heath, Frank Wess, and was the last bassist to perform with The Carnegie Hall Jazz Band. I have released two CD's as a leader entitled Tomorrows and Lexicon, the latter featuring pianist Renee Rosnes, drummer Lewis Nash, and special guest artist Joe Henderson for the Double-Time Jazz label.

My most recent performing involvements include concerts and club appearances with The James Moody Quartet, a group I have been associated with for 18 years as well as free lace work in New York City, Europe, and Japan.

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10
Album Review

Noah Haidu: Doctone

Read "Doctone" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


Pianist Kenny Kirkland never seemed particularly interested in attaining the high level of fame enjoyed by two of his early employers, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and saxophonist Branford Marsalis. He worked first for Wynton, playing on four of the trumpeter's albums between 1981 and 1985, before moving into Branford's orbit, for eight albums between 1983 to 1998. These were breakout times for the famous brothers, burst-out-onto-the-scene times that were critical to their ultimate successes. And Kenny Kirkland was there, contributing his ...

2
Album Review

Todd Coolman & Trifecta: Collectables

Read "Collectables" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


Bassist Todd Coolman readily cops to his collections in the liner essay for this delightful date, noting a fondness for accumulating baseball caps, photos and drawings of birds, timepieces, and antique fishing tackle. But it's his collections from the realm of music--also cited in his writing(s)--that shape this date. He's amassed a stockpile of favorite songs over the course of his storied career and he's filled his mental Rolodex with a cache of compatriots ideally suited to different projects. He ...

401
Album Review

Todd Coolman: Perfect Strangers

Read "Perfect Strangers" reviewed by Woodrow Wilkins


While the songs themselves aren't original to the band, the approach taken with Perfect Strangers is itself novel. Bassist Todd Coolman is an in-demand session player based in New York. He director of jazz studies at Purchase College and has also authored two books: The Bass Tradition and The Bottom Line. His associations over the years have included Horace Silver, Gerry Mulligan, Lionel Hampton and Benny Goodman, among others. For Perfect Strangers, Coolman brought ...

248
Album Review

Todd Coolman: Perfect Strangers

Read "Perfect Strangers" reviewed by Jerry D'Souza


A little bit of imagination is a good thing. Bassist Todd Coolman thought “outside the box" and came up with the idea of soliciting compositions from the public. He chose seven tunes which make up the program for the aptly titled Perfect Strangers. Hopefully, the voices that are heard here through Coolman, Eric Alexander (tenor saxophone), Brian Lynch (trumpet), Jim McNeely (piano) and John Riley (drums) will not remain strangers, and will continue to find avenues of expression for their ...

398
Album Review

Todd Coolman: Perfect Strangers

Read "Perfect Strangers" reviewed by Edward Blanco


Among the more in-demand musicians in New York, bassist and Director of Jazz Studies at Purchase College (SUNY), Todd Coolman and his Learning Community Quintet throw the dice here in a gamble to present an original concept album with a risky proposition clearly bound to pay musical dividends with critical acclaim. Perfect Strangers, Coolman's third album as leader, is a very apropos title for an ArtistShare Records project because, when referring to these seven new charts, it accurately ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Doctone

Sunnyside Records
2020

buy

Kenny Kirkland: un...

Sunnyside Records
2020

buy

Collectables

Sunnyside Records
2016

buy

Perfect Strangers

ArtistShare
2008

buy

Midnight Silence

From: Doctone
By Todd Coolman

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