Jeff Coffin

Saxophonist Jeff Coffin first rose to prominence through his tenure with Béla Fleck & the Flecktones before stepping in as LeRoi Moore’s successor with the Dave Matthews Band. Settled in Nashville since the early 1990s, he has lent his horn to projects by Chris Thile, Charlie Peacock, Amos Lee, and the Mavericks while collecting multiple Grammy recognitions. These include victories with the Flecktones for Outbound in 2000 and The Hidden Land in 2006, plus a nomination tied to his initial appearance on the Dave Matthews Band’s 2009 release Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King. Coffin has simultaneously built a catalog of exploratory recordings leading his Mu’Tet ensemble and, since 2015, has served as professor of jazz saxophone at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music.

Born in Massachusetts in 1965, Coffin spent his teenage years in Dexter, Maine, where he took up the alto saxophone in fifth grade and participated in the University of New Hampshire’s Summer Youth Music School. After moving to Rochester, New Hampshire, he completed two years of music study at UNH before transferring to the University of North Texas. He earned a B.A. in Music Education in 1990, received an NEA grant, and spent a year under the tutelage of Joe Lovano prior to relocating to Nashville. From that point forward he has divided his schedule among live performance, studio work, and classroom instruction. His first solo album, Outside the Lines, appeared in 1997; two years later he launched Ear Up Records and issued his follow-up, Commonality.

Coffin entered Béla Fleck & the Flecktones in 1997 after earlier collaborations with bassist Victor Wooten. Over the ensuing fourteen years he toured and recorded extensively with the group, contributing to the concert documents Live Art and Live at the Quick while sharing in Grammy Awards for Outbound, The Hidden Land, and the 2009 holiday set Jingle All the Way. His profile expanded during this period, establishing him as an internationally recognized artist with a devoted audience.

Parallel to his Flecktones commitments, Coffin directed the stylistically wide-ranging Mu’Tet, whose name nods to the concept of mutation and whose rotating lineup has included pianist Kofi Burbridge, guitarist Pat Bergeson, drummer Jeff Sipe, bassist Felix Pastorius, and additional players. The ensemble’s discography began with 2001’s Go Round, continued with Bloom in 2005 and Mutopia in 2008, and later yielded Into the Air (2012) and Side Up (2014). During this stretch Coffin departed the Flecktones to join the Dave Matthews Band, filling the chair left vacant by LeRoi Moore after the saxophonist’s ATV accident and subsequent death. He appeared on several live releases as well as the studio albums Away from the World (2012) alongside the earlier Grammy-nominated Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King.

In 2015 Coffin joined the faculty of Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music. That same year he teamed with saxophonist Caleb Chapman for the New Orleans-inflected Inside of the Outside, which showcased guest contributions from Branford Marsalis, Trombone Shorty, and Randy Brecker. Subsequent projects include the largely solo Sometimes Springtime (2016), the large-ensemble Next Time Yellow (2017), and the holiday trio recording Sleigh What?! (2017). In 2018 he issued the duo album Flight with percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani and rejoined the Dave Matthews Band for a summer tour.