George Coleman

I would just go downstairs on University Place and I could see Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan and Soros and McCoy Tyner.

Oh my God, George Coleman played the saxophone and oh my god it was incredible and then at that time too you know punk was happening and metal was happening and i met oh just some amazing players and so so like i don't know uh the lead singer for reagan youth which was a great punk band and he would bring me over to cbgb's to see the bad brains and dead kennedys and oh i even saw this guy With his band, and they were called White Zombie at the time.

Yeah, yeah.

The great Rob Zombie.

He got the name Hank from Memphis band leader Al Jackson Senior because he looked and sounded like a local alto man named Hank O'Day.

But Bennie Ross Crawford was born here in Memphis in 1934 and was hanging out with fellow Manassas High schoolmates George Coleman, Charles Lloyd, and Phines and Calvin Newburn, and playing with the bands of B.B. King, Percy Mayfield, and Ike Turner before he was 20.

But when he was attending Tennessee State University in the late '50s, he was heard by a man who would turn things around forever for him, Ray Charles.

Hank joined Ray's band on baritone sax, and here's his first composition for Ray's band from the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958, Sherry.

It's called Four Generations of Miles, a live tribute to Miles Davis, featuring musicians from different eras of Miles Davis's music.

Jimmy Cobb on drums, George Coleman on tenor saxophone, Mike Stern on electric guitar, and Ron Carter on bass.

That was recorded in May of 2002.

And before that, we heard Chick Corea in a trio setting from the album The Song of Singing.

Yeah, there's no people, yeah.

I, I had never seen George Coleman before.

Yeah, yeah.

You understand? [laughs]

Oh, yeah.

I was like, I was like, "Wait a minute, that was George Coleman?"

[laughs]

Oh my God.

Yeah.

And it's almost like Justin's more like the George Coleman to Miles-

Yeah, yeah

... as opposed to the Wayne Shorter or the John Coltrane.

Yeah.

But George Coleman was great.

Yeah.

I mean, that's, that's a good place to be.