Steve Coleman and Five Elements

Born on 20 September 1956 in Chicago, Illinois, Steve Coleman absorbed the funk, rock, soul and blues that filled the city’s south side, an immersion that instilled an enduring rhythmic sensibility. School violin lessons gave way at fifteen to the alto saxophone, which he first exercised in James Brown cover bands. At Illinois Wesleyan University he found himself the lone black student in the music department, an experience he later described by noting he “did not know any white people until he was 17 or something.” When his jazz-band instructor demanded improvisation, Coleman turned to his father’s record shelf—his parent being a devoted “Bird” devotee—and discovered a Charlie Parker album that he transcribed note for note, just as he had already done with Maceo Parker’s work.

Back in Chicago he apprenticed on the bandstand with tenor master and educator Von Freeman, absorbing bebop fundamentals. In 1978 he relocated to New York, entering the Mel Lewis–Thad Jones Big Band before moving on to the Cecil Taylor Orchestra and Sam Rivers’ Winds of Manhattan ensemble. Coleman’s outspoken engagement with peers such as vocalist Cassandra Wilson led to the formation of M-Base, a collective designed to help black musicians fuse every strand of their tradition into a single, inclusive language. Eschewing the Berklee-derived John Coltrane–Michael Brecker mainstream, the collective cultivated an idiosyncratic electric jazz-funk tempered by Thelonious Monk’s angularity and harmolodic principles.

Some listeners anointed Coleman the heir to Charlie Parker while others dismissed him as an over-promoted talent. Although reviewers singled out his relatively conventional bop playing with Dave Holland’s quintet for praise, Coleman maintains that the same approach governs his own Five Elements. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s he documented an extensive body of work with groups including Renegade Way—featuring Greg Osby, Joe Lovano, Craig Handy, Kenny Davis, and Yoron Israel—the Mystic Rhythm Society, the Metrics, and the large ensemble Council of Balance, while also pursuing collaborative projects with Cuban and African musicians.