Sideman Supreme

George Coleman family collection

by CHRIS DAVIS

When tenor saxophone player George Coleman, who will be inducted into the new Memphis Music Hall of Fame this week, describes his career, he uses words like "overlooked," "ignored," and "forgotten." But he speaks them without the faintest hint of bitterness or regret.

Ironically, Coleman, one of the great hard-bop tenor saxophone players, knows he was out of time, carrying on the traditions of Charlie Parker while all around him the young lions of free jazz were following the lead of another Coleman: Ornette. George Coleman may have been forgotten by the jazz critics, but his skills were noticed and prized by players such as John Coltrane, B.B. King, Chet Baker, Miles Davis, and Max Roach. That, he says, is what matters.

Memphis Flyer: You are one of a long list of great jazz players who graduated from Manassas High. What did that school have that was so special?

George Coleman: We had some very good music teachers there. Professor W.T. McDaniel [also an initial Memphis Music Hall of Fame inductee] was a good high school instructor. After that, it's Matt Garrick, the father of Dee Dee Bridgewater. Jimmie Lunceford [another inductee] started the program. I didn't know Jimmie though. I didn't know until much later that he had even been a part of that program. The instructors were good. Emerson Able taught there for a while too.

Can you name some of the musicians who you went to school with there?

Harold Mabern, Frank Strozier, and Hank Crawford were all there.

Were you all playing together as students?

Kind of but not really, because I was on the football team and was playing football all the time. I was an athlete. Or I professed to be an athlete. It wasn't until later that I really began to get serious about playing music. When I graduated, I went straight to playing the saxophone. Booker Little and I hooked up. He was such a talent. Then I went downtown to Mitchell's Hotel on the corner of Hernando and Beale. It was quite famous because a lot of musicians would come from out of town and stay there. And they would jam with us. People like Ernie Wilkins, who was arranging for Count Basie and was in Basie's band, and the Turrentine brothers, Tommy and Stanley.

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