I just found out we lost Carl Coan. As I consider what to say about Carl, I begin to realize just how devastating a loss this is for me. Carl and I were brothers. Estranged brothers.
We grew up together in music. We played together in the first real band I was ever in, The Balance. We spent countless hours rehearsing, gigging, and listening to the world- at-large, together. We downed Guinness on tap at the Green Mill after Chicago jazz club hopping. We played jam nights in Indiana under an assortment of faux band names such as "Tripping Toddlers" and "Porridge". We had countless breakfasts at 4:30 AM at racist Denny's restaurants (only because they were the only places open after gigs) all over the midwest, and afterwards drove home listening to bootleg tapes of Buddy Rich firing his band, or edgy funk or jazz that never got radio play-- but that Carl always seemed to find.
I met Carl through my writing partner back then, Craig Lachmund. Craig and I had gotten some interest from several major record labels from the first demo we had done, and were going back into the studio to record more songs. We had worked with trumpet virtuoso Steve Cooper on the first set of recordings to good effect. Steve also played the EVI (Electric Valve Instrument) which allowed him to interface with keyboards via a controller that made use of trumpet fingerings. Carl was a master saxer (he would get a kick out of that phrasing-- he always called me a master basser....), and he was moving into the realm of the EWI (the Electronic Wind Instrument) which allowed him to play in a keyboard's eight octave range with saxophone fingerings. Steve lived in Indy. Carl lived right there so it made perfect sense for the band's burgeoning sound.
Over time, Craig and I went our separate ways, but Carl and I played together for several years through various incarnations of The Balance. We played jazz clubs on the north side of Chicago, and outdoor festivals throughout the Midwest; we recorded together on a couple of projects I produced in town; and we even cut a jingle for a commercial together. When the fusion band The Balance morphed into the pop-funk band Cut To The Chase, and CTTC re-located to Arizona, Carl moved to AZ as well, and we continued to make music. The first time I scoped out Arizona, Carl and I went together, and we sat in with Diana Lee's band at the Depot Cantina and hung out at Chuy's.... Carl and I did L.A. together-- we did NAMM shows; we hung out with one of the guys from Incubus; we took a hair-raising cab ride to get to a rent-a-car place before they closed. On that occasion we conquered a traffic jam by virtue of the cab driver putting two wheels up on the retaining wall and cruising down the highway on a tilt along the road's shoulder. We checked out the Cats at the Baked Potato-- Abe Laboriel and Carlos Vega and Luis Conte and Mike Landau. In New York we went to CBGB; we jammed in somebody's Manhattan loft, and we jammed out on Long Island. We went to Woody Allen's favorite Chinese restaurant. We checked out the Cats as we caught the Gil Evans Big Band at Sweet Basil and met and hung out with Mark Egan and Lew Soloff and Danny Gottlieb. The next day we tooled around Connecticut past David Letterman's house and Andre Agassi's place, in search of a custom mouthpiece made for Carl by Phil Barone.
While we were doing the East Coast thing, we hung out at Manhattan School of Music, where Carl was finally able to ask Mike Brecker when the transcription book he (Carl) had worked so hard on would finally be made available. The students there treated Carl like the guru he was, and followed him around trying to get access to the transcriptions before the book came out, and asking him to demonstrate alternate fingerings. Carl earned that following-- he had had to create a new notation language just to communicate the split tones and partial harmonics and the rest of Brecker's vocabulary.
In addition to the Brecker book, Carl wrote the Coltrane book, worked on a book for David Sanborn, and he created an Insert of transcriptions for a Dave Liebman CD. I remember Carl wondering aloud why Liebman wanted to include the insert. "I don't know what the point is, why he even wants this-- there are only maybe four people in the world who can play this stuff."
I asked him if he was one of the four.
He said, "Well. Yeah."
And, of course, he could.
I am tempted to write all kinds of things using words like "genius" and "master". And those words all apply. Carl should be as famous as any other great musician you may have heard of. But "should", at the end of the day, really doesn't apply. Carl is famous where it counts. Those who came in contact with him, those who know music and musicians, know Carl Coan...
I remember when Jaco Pastorius left us, and how stunned I was that the larger world didn't seem to notice. At all. And then I realized that the world of music is subcultural. (All worlds, really.) It is rare for anyone outside of the subculture to take any notice at all of what happens there. Bruce Lee might be one of the few exceptions, and had there been no major motion pictures for him, who would have noticed when he was gone? And yet, he was a true martial arts "genius" and "master", movies and television notwithstanding. And so, Carl made his mark. He lives on in our memories, and in our musical imaginations, in our hearts, and through his books and recordings.
His sense of humor was as much a part of him as his musicianship. He loved dry British comedians, and he loved the absurd. I remember the chin-strap sideburns he affected down in AZ, that began as a what-if, and then appeared on his face for a gig or two... He was a musical historian before I knew there was such a thing, and his collection of jazz videos, even at the advent of home VCRs was epic, particularly when you consider that youtube had yet to come into being.
I learned so much about music from Carl by osmosis, but also because of his direct attempt at hipping me to what was happening in the stratosphere of world class musical performance. We saw Sonny Rollins together. He turned me on to Stefan Grossman (and bassist Gene Perla, who all fans of Jaco should check out). He turned me on to Wolfgang Schmid, and bootleg tapes of Jonas Hellborg at Quasimodo's in Germany; to the New York funk of Slickophonics, and Paranoise; to the Cornell Rochester and Gerald Veasley project, in addition to their work with saxophonist Odean Pope. Carl also turned me on to the notion that when improvising one is always a half-step away from success or failure...
Carl was at his best on first takes. Yes, he had a deep knowledge of theory and harmony, and his technique... Carl had chops for days, years even... But what beautiful melodies he would spin on those first takes.... When Cut To The Chase was born, Carl was there. Carl on EWI, Mike Lummio on guitar, and I (on bass) plugged into the board in my home studio, and without even tuning up, let alone talking about what we would play, we made music for two hours. Good music. I am in the process of remastering some of these archival recordings and hope to get some of this music out into the world in the coming year.
I began this by noting that Carl was my "estranged " brother. When I met Carl, I was married, a family man. Along the way, the woman to whom I was married pulled the plug on our relationship, and took off with our children. I chose to put music, the rest of my life really, on hold while looking for my kids. My former wife made it a point to cause a lot of disharmony on her way out, and wrecked many long-term relationships. I regret that my friendship with Carl was one of the casualties of this time. I always thought that eventually Carl and I might reconnect. And now that will not happen. The moral here is don't wait. There is only today. Don't let bullshit get in the way of what is really important. And all of those things that stand in the way of love and understanding-- all of those things are bullshit.
And now I cry over the loss of my friend, my brother, Carl.
But I also smile. He was a kind, funny, decent man, as well as a tremendous talent. He is missed. He is remembered.
May the four winds blow you gently home, Carl.
Manley
March 15, 2020
We grew up together in music. We played together in the first real band I was ever in, The Balance. We spent countless hours rehearsing, gigging, and listening to the world- at-large, together. We downed Guinness on tap at the Green Mill after Chicago jazz club hopping. We played jam nights in Indiana under an assortment of faux band names such as "Tripping Toddlers" and "Porridge". We had countless breakfasts at 4:30 AM at racist Denny's restaurants (only because they were the only places open after gigs) all over the midwest, and afterwards drove home listening to bootleg tapes of Buddy Rich firing his band, or edgy funk or jazz that never got radio play-- but that Carl always seemed to find.
I met Carl through my writing partner back then, Craig Lachmund. Craig and I had gotten some interest from several major record labels from the first demo we had done, and were going back into the studio to record more songs. We had worked with trumpet virtuoso Steve Cooper on the first set of recordings to good effect. Steve also played the EVI (Electric Valve Instrument) which allowed him to interface with keyboards via a controller that made use of trumpet fingerings. Carl was a master saxer (he would get a kick out of that phrasing-- he always called me a master basser....), and he was moving into the realm of the EWI (the Electronic Wind Instrument) which allowed him to play in a keyboard's eight octave range with saxophone fingerings. Steve lived in Indy. Carl lived right there so it made perfect sense for the band's burgeoning sound.
Over time, Craig and I went our separate ways, but Carl and I played together for several years through various incarnations of The Balance. We played jazz clubs on the north side of Chicago, and outdoor festivals throughout the Midwest; we recorded together on a couple of projects I produced in town; and we even cut a jingle for a commercial together. When the fusion band The Balance morphed into the pop-funk band Cut To The Chase, and CTTC re-located to Arizona, Carl moved to AZ as well, and we continued to make music. The first time I scoped out Arizona, Carl and I went together, and we sat in with Diana Lee's band at the Depot Cantina and hung out at Chuy's.... Carl and I did L.A. together-- we did NAMM shows; we hung out with one of the guys from Incubus; we took a hair-raising cab ride to get to a rent-a-car place before they closed. On that occasion we conquered a traffic jam by virtue of the cab driver putting two wheels up on the retaining wall and cruising down the highway on a tilt along the road's shoulder. We checked out the Cats at the Baked Potato-- Abe Laboriel and Carlos Vega and Luis Conte and Mike Landau. In New York we went to CBGB; we jammed in somebody's Manhattan loft, and we jammed out on Long Island. We went to Woody Allen's favorite Chinese restaurant. We checked out the Cats as we caught the Gil Evans Big Band at Sweet Basil and met and hung out with Mark Egan and Lew Soloff and Danny Gottlieb. The next day we tooled around Connecticut past David Letterman's house and Andre Agassi's place, in search of a custom mouthpiece made for Carl by Phil Barone.
While we were doing the East Coast thing, we hung out at Manhattan School of Music, where Carl was finally able to ask Mike Brecker when the transcription book he (Carl) had worked so hard on would finally be made available. The students there treated Carl like the guru he was, and followed him around trying to get access to the transcriptions before the book came out, and asking him to demonstrate alternate fingerings. Carl earned that following-- he had had to create a new notation language just to communicate the split tones and partial harmonics and the rest of Brecker's vocabulary.
In addition to the Brecker book, Carl wrote the Coltrane book, worked on a book for David Sanborn, and he created an Insert of transcriptions for a Dave Liebman CD. I remember Carl wondering aloud why Liebman wanted to include the insert. "I don't know what the point is, why he even wants this-- there are only maybe four people in the world who can play this stuff."
I asked him if he was one of the four.
He said, "Well. Yeah."
And, of course, he could.
I am tempted to write all kinds of things using words like "genius" and "master". And those words all apply. Carl should be as famous as any other great musician you may have heard of. But "should", at the end of the day, really doesn't apply. Carl is famous where it counts. Those who came in contact with him, those who know music and musicians, know Carl Coan...
I remember when Jaco Pastorius left us, and how stunned I was that the larger world didn't seem to notice. At all. And then I realized that the world of music is subcultural. (All worlds, really.) It is rare for anyone outside of the subculture to take any notice at all of what happens there. Bruce Lee might be one of the few exceptions, and had there been no major motion pictures for him, who would have noticed when he was gone? And yet, he was a true martial arts "genius" and "master", movies and television notwithstanding. And so, Carl made his mark. He lives on in our memories, and in our musical imaginations, in our hearts, and through his books and recordings.
His sense of humor was as much a part of him as his musicianship. He loved dry British comedians, and he loved the absurd. I remember the chin-strap sideburns he affected down in AZ, that began as a what-if, and then appeared on his face for a gig or two... He was a musical historian before I knew there was such a thing, and his collection of jazz videos, even at the advent of home VCRs was epic, particularly when you consider that youtube had yet to come into being.
I learned so much about music from Carl by osmosis, but also because of his direct attempt at hipping me to what was happening in the stratosphere of world class musical performance. We saw Sonny Rollins together. He turned me on to Stefan Grossman (and bassist Gene Perla, who all fans of Jaco should check out). He turned me on to Wolfgang Schmid, and bootleg tapes of Jonas Hellborg at Quasimodo's in Germany; to the New York funk of Slickophonics, and Paranoise; to the Cornell Rochester and Gerald Veasley project, in addition to their work with saxophonist Odean Pope. Carl also turned me on to the notion that when improvising one is always a half-step away from success or failure...
Carl was at his best on first takes. Yes, he had a deep knowledge of theory and harmony, and his technique... Carl had chops for days, years even... But what beautiful melodies he would spin on those first takes.... When Cut To The Chase was born, Carl was there. Carl on EWI, Mike Lummio on guitar, and I (on bass) plugged into the board in my home studio, and without even tuning up, let alone talking about what we would play, we made music for two hours. Good music. I am in the process of remastering some of these archival recordings and hope to get some of this music out into the world in the coming year.
I began this by noting that Carl was my "estranged " brother. When I met Carl, I was married, a family man. Along the way, the woman to whom I was married pulled the plug on our relationship, and took off with our children. I chose to put music, the rest of my life really, on hold while looking for my kids. My former wife made it a point to cause a lot of disharmony on her way out, and wrecked many long-term relationships. I regret that my friendship with Carl was one of the casualties of this time. I always thought that eventually Carl and I might reconnect. And now that will not happen. The moral here is don't wait. There is only today. Don't let bullshit get in the way of what is really important. And all of those things that stand in the way of love and understanding-- all of those things are bullshit.
And now I cry over the loss of my friend, my brother, Carl.
But I also smile. He was a kind, funny, decent man, as well as a tremendous talent. He is missed. He is remembered.
May the four winds blow you gently home, Carl.
Manley
March 15, 2020