With Greenwich Village jazz club Smalls owner Spike Wilner on piano, George Coleman - now in his late eighties recording here last year on this live album originating from inside Smalls itself - the Memphis born legendary Miles Davis tenor saxophonist, who is on among other Miles albums such classics as Seven Steps to Heaven, My Funny Valentine and Four & More, references Miles from the get-go on Live at Smalls Jazz Club as the album opens with Miles' 'Four' and also includes the Rodgers and Hart classic 'My Funny Valentine' that Miles made his own. If you love Miles this is a trip down memory lane given how Coleman's sound - even given the ravages of time - sends you there. He has influenced many saxophonists down the years including English icon Iain Ballamy and you can hear the debt Iain for one owes to Coleman when he played ballads on 2020's What's New. Very respectfully supported by the great bassist Peter Washington and drummer Joe Farnsworth, Coleman completists will have to have this warts and all. We liked 'Blues for Smalls' most and the deep sentimentality that the Maiden Voyage saxophonist translates pertinently on Hoagy Carmichael's 'The Nearness of You' that wrings emotion out of every pore. George Coleman, photo: cover art detail
MORE READING AND LISTENING:
- Surfboard - 2020
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