 
UC
Berkeley music department scores big hit hiring prominent saxophonist
Steve Coleman to teach, do research
01
Feb 2000
By
Kathleen Maclay, Public Affairs
BERKELEY--
Music has transported saxophonist Steve Coleman from Chicago
to Ghana, Paris to Havana, Senegal to Brazil, Oakland to India.
His latest stop: the University of California, Berkeley, where
this month he began teaching and conducting research.
Although
Coleman, 42, teaches music improvisation and often is described
as a jazz musician, he said in an interview from his new Oakland
home that such labels are too limiting. He has broad musical
interests and talents, which shine in his work as a cutting-edge
performer, band leader, record producer and ethnomusicologist.
Coleman
has performed with music greats such as Dizzy Gillespie, Dave
Holland, Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Abbey Lincoln, Sam Rivers,
Sarah Vaughn, Thad Jones, McCoy Tyner, Bobby McFerrin and Ray
Brown. His reputation is especially strong in France and Germany.
And
while he enjoys performing as a soloist, he also is a collaborator
who thrives on working with people from many countries and cultures
as he researches areas such as aboriginal music.
"Steve
Coleman is an outstanding artist who is constantly expanding
his aesthetic horizons," said UC Berkeley music professor
Olly Wilson, who was chair of the search committee.
Wye
J. Allanbrooke, chair of the music department, praised Coleman
when announcing his appointment to the tenure-track position
after a lengthy, national search.
"Steve
is just a thrilling teacher," she said. "He's also
very much a visionary and a real believer in collaboration.
He works with his group."
Coleman
is dividing his time between the music department, where he
does teaching and research, and his research at the Center for
New Music and Audio Technology. The center is an interdisciplinary
music department satellite program that explores links between
music and technology.
Coleman
said he repeatedly declined teaching offers at East Coast institutions,
and that UC Berkeley's open approach to teaching and the opportunity
to continue his research lured him West.
"I
already have tons of writings on my computer," Coleman
said. He said his research "involves a creative music from
the perspective of my experiences. Ultimately, it involves mankind's
relationship to the universe and who and what we are."
Coleman's
résumé reflects a wide and deep range of musical
talents, interests and commitments:
·
Trained first to play the violin, he switched to the alto saxophone
and later began to study improvisation.
·
He spent five weeks in Ghana studying the relationship of language
to music and recorded "Def Trance Beat" and "A
Tale of 3 Cities" when he returned to the United States.
·
In Cuba, Coleman explored the ways information from ancient
African cultures is transmitted through music. He then performed
at the Havana Jazz Festival with his own group in collaboration
with the folkloric group AfroCuba de Matanzas.
·
With partial funding from Arts International, Coleman took a
group of musicians from America and Cuba to Senegal in 1997
for a musical and cultural exchange with a Senegalese group
called "Sing Sing Rhythm."
·
Coleman likes to participate in community outreach such as providing
workshops, clinics and low-cost performances. He's offered free
programs for musicians and rapper/lyricists in the Bay Area.
·
Some of Coleman's latest work centers around computer music
and creation of computer models of ancestral memory and music.
"I'm
not one of those people who shies away from technology,"
Coleman said. "A piano is a tool, a machine, as is the
saxophone and the computer."
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