Search - Tim Coffman :: Crossroads

"A wonderful showcase for his talents"

Henry W. Wagner | Rockaway, NJ USA | 06/22/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Crossroads--BluJazz Productions, Web: www.blujazz.com. Yes or No; Sail Away; Step Lightly; Crossroads; My Old Flame; Summer in Central Park; Sky Dive; Lament; Caravan; Alone Together.

PERSONNEL: Tim Coffman, trombone; Scott Wendholt, trumpet; Mark Colby, tenor and soprano sax; Mike Kocour, piano; Kelly Sill, bass; Bob Rummage, drums.



Judging by the tunes he's chosen to cover, and the order in which he presents them on his latest CD, Tim Coffman is a canny judge of what works for his band; the ten tracks on his debut, Crossroads effortlessly blend into each other, providing a pleasurable and meaningful listening experience.



Coffman's sequencing is uncanny in its precision; he builds towards the fourth piece on the CD, his own CrossRoads, with Wayne Shorter's Yes or No, Tom Harrell's Sail Away, and Joe Henderson's Step Lightly, and follows it with Johnston and Coslow's My Old Flame, Horace Silver's Summer in Central park, and Freddie Hubbard's Sky Dive, before finishing with fellow trombonist J. J. Johnson's Lament, Juan Tizol's classic Caravan, and Deitz and Scwhartz's Alone Together. Ten outstanding compositions, each successive work complementing and enhancing the works before it, so that by the time you reach the tenth track, you're ready to play the whole CD over again.



As stated in the insightful liner notes written by David Baker of Indiana University, Crossroads "is a wonderful showcase for his (Coffman's) talents as a performer, composer and arranger." It also proves that he's a canny judge of talent, if the performances of his sextet, consisting of Mark Colby, Scott Wendholt, Michael Kocour, Kelly Sill, and Bob Rummage is any indication. Each of these outstanding players clearly recognizes that their mission is to build on what's come before while making it their own. In that they succeed, wonderfully.



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