Anthony Coleman playing prepared piano at the Krakow Festival, 2005. Photo: Bogdan Krezel. Courtesy of the Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow.

Interviewing Anthony Coleman was an illuminating experience for me. I’d heard him live once and was impressed with the brilliance of his playing. The interview covered his jazz and improv roots. His interest and knowledge of Duke Ellington and Jelly Roll Morton is way deeper than my own. God! He made whatever interest I have in them feel superficial—much chagrin. His composer chops are equally impressive, and now that I’ve listened to the records he’s made for Tzadik, including Selfhaters, The Abysmal Richness of the Infinite Proximity of the Same, Morenica, and Sephardic Tinge, I can’t wait for more. His latest, just out and also from Tzadik, Shmutsige Magnaten: Coleman Plays Gebirtig, was recorded live at midnight in Krakow‘s oldest synagogue, a few steps from the legendary Yiddish composer Mordechai Gebirtig‘s birthplace. Coleman has infused these once-popular compositions—Gebirtig died in the Holocaust—with traditions developed from the American avant-garde. It‘s a virtuoso rendition.

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Issue 96 Summer 2006