Alto Saxophone/Composer/Producer/Computer Music Applications

Collaborative Concerts With

Jack DeJohnette
Dizzy Gillespie
Doug Hammond
Dave Holland
David Murray
Sam Rivers
Mongo Santa Maria
Cecil Taylor
Sarah Vaughan
Wynton Marsalis
Bobby McFerrin
Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra
Abbey Lincoln
Branford Marsalis
Ray Brown
Von Freeman
McCoy Tyner
Bunky Green
Mike Brecker

Selected Discography (Title ---- Artist ---- Record)

With Five Elements, Metrics and The Mystic Rhythm Society

Watch for the RCA November release of the new box set (3 CDs)
with three Steve Coleman groups recorded Live in Paris
(Five Elements, Metrics and the Mystic Rhythm Society)

Def Trance Beat ---- Steve Coleman and Five Elements ---- 1995 RCA/Novus Records
A Tale of 3 Cities ---- Steve Coleman and Metrics ---- 1994 RCA/Novus Records
The Tao of Mad Phat ---- Steve Coleman and Five Elements ---- 1993 RCA/Novus Records
Drop Kick ---- Steve Coleman and Five Elements ---- 1992 RCA/Novus Records
Black Science ---- Steve Coleman and Five Elements ---- 1991 RCA/Novus Records
Rhythm People ---- Steve Coleman and Five Elements ---- 1990 RCA/Novus Records
Sine Die ---- Steve Coleman and Five Elements ---- 1988 Pangaea Records
World Expansion ---- Steve Coleman and Five Elements ---- 1987 JMT Records
On the Edge of Tomorrow ---- Steve Coleman and Five Elements ---- 1986 JMT Records

As a leader

Motherland Pulse ---- Steve Coleman ---- 1986 JMT Records

As a producer

Rhythm in Mind ---- Steve Coleman ---- 1992 RCA/Novus Records
Anatomy of a Groove ---- The M-Base Collective ---- 1992 Rebel-X Records
Phase-Space ---- Coleman/Holland ---- 1991 Rebel-X Records
Transmigration ---- Strata Institute ---- 1991 Rebel-X Records
A Waltz for Grace ---- Steve Williamson ---- 1990 Polydor Records
JumpWorld ---- Cassandra Wilson ---- 1989 JMT Records
Cipher Syntax ---- Strata Institute ---- 1989 Polydor KK
Days Aweigh ---- Cassandra Wilson ---- 1987 JMT Records
In the Middle ---- Geri Allen ---- 1987 Minor Music
Point of View ---- Cassandra Wilson ---- 1986 JMT Records

As a sideman

Man-Talk for Moderns, Vol.X ---- Greg Osby ---- 1991 Blue Note Records
Extensions ---- Dave Holland ---- 1990 ECM Records
The Road Less Traveled ---- Marvin Smitty Smith ---- 1989 Concord Records
Triplicate ---- Dave Holland ---- 1988 ECM Records
Keeper of the Drums ---- Marvin Smitty Smith ---- 1987 Concord Records
The Razors Edge ---- Dave Holland ---- 1987 ECM Records
Seeds of Time ---- Dave Holland ---- 1985 ECM Records
Jumpin In ---- Dave Holland ---- 1984 ECM Records
Scenes of the City ---- Branford Marsalis ---- 1984 CBS Records
Talkin to the Sun ---- Abbey Lincoln ---- 1984 Enja Records
Spaces ---- Doug Hammond ---- 1982 Idibib Records

Teaching Experience

Banff School of Fine Arts ---- 1985-1989 ---- (Faculty Member)
Banff School of Fine Arts ---- 1990-1991 ---- (Artistic Head)

Improvisation, Saxophone, Composition, Ensemble, Computer Programming/Computer Music Applications and Music Business

Business Experience

M-Base Collective ---- Founding Member ---- (Creative music movement)
C& M Music Productions Inc. ---- President ---- (Record company)
Funk Mob Records ---- President ---- (Record company)
M-Base Concepts ---- President ---- (Music publishing administration)
Goemon Publishing Company ---- President ---- (Music publishing)

When he got to Illinois Wesleyan University, the other Parker came back into his musical view. Hanging out at various hot spots around 75th Street to watch masters like Von Freeman navigate gnarled changes triggered in Coleman a desire to rethink his father’s points about Bird -- which he began by listening to a boot-legged Charlie Parker LP his dad had slipped into his suitcase. By the time he left Chicago in May 1978, he was holding down a decent gig leading a band at the New Apartment Lounge, writing music, playing Parker classics, and getting increasingly dissatisfied with what he felt was a creative dead end in the Chicago scene.

After hearing groups from New York like Max Roach, Art Blakey, Woody Shaw and Sonny Rollins come through town with bands that featured players of superior ability and advanced musical conceptions Steve knew where he wanted to go next. Staying at a YMCA in New York City for a few months, he scuffled until he picked up a gig with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Big Band, which led to stints with the Sam Rivers Big Band, Cecil Taylor’s Big Band and others. He’d also begun cutting records as a sideman with those leaders as well as pivotal figures like David Murray, Doug Hammond, Dave Holland, Mike Brecker, Abbey Lincoln, Bobby McFerrin and Branford Marsalis. It was really the influence of Von Freeman and Bunky Green in Chicago and Thad Jones, Sam Rivers, and Doug Hammond in New York that got Coleman turned around musically. The most important influence on his music at this time was listening to tenor saxophonist Von Freeman (who primarily influenced Coleman as an improviser) and drummer/composer Doug Hammond (who was especially important in Steve's conceptual thinking). Even playing with these masters only went part of the way toward paying the rent, and so for the next four years Coleman spent a good deal of time playing in New York City's streets with the beginnings of the group that would evolve into Steve Coleman and Five Elements.

After some personnel shifts, the group began finding a niche in tiny, out-of-the-way clubs in Harlem and Brooklyn where they continued to hone their developing concept of improvisation within nested looping structures, the foundation upon which Coleman and friends call the M-Base concept. Hooking up with the West German JMT label in 1985, he and his co- conspirators got their chance to document their emergent ideas on Coleman-led recordings like Motherland Pulse, On The Edge Of Tomorrow, and World Expansion. These ideas were developed further on Steve’s albums Sine Die, Rhythm People, Black Science, Drop Kick, The Tao of Mad Phat, and Def Trance Beat as well as A Tale of 3 Cities and the first album of the entire M-Base collective Anatomy of a Groove.