Artist: Tony Coe
Anthony George Coe was an English jazz musician who played clarinet, bass clarinet, and flute as well as soprano, alto, and tenor saxophones.
Born in Canterbury, Kent, England, Coe started out on clarinet and was self-taught on tenor saxophone. At just 15 years of age in 1949 he played in his school's (Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys) trad band and two years later, aged 17, became a full professional with Joe Daniels.
In 1953, aged 18, he joined the army where he played clarinet in the Military band and saxophone with the unit Dance Band. After demob in 1955 he spent some time in France with the Micky Bryan Band (Micky on piano, Gerry Salisbury (valve trombone), Harry Bryan (trumpet), Lennie Hastings on drums, and Coe on clarinet), before rejoining Joe Daniels.
Tony spent just over four years with Humphrey's band from 1957 to the end of 1961. This was a period when Coe was brought to the attention of critics and fans as well as giving him some degree of international fame.
He left Lyttleton at the end of 1961 to form his own outfit. As leader, his notable albums in this period include 1967's Tony's Basement for Denis Preston, a combination of jazz players and string quartet which "suits his evenness of tone and highly personal sound perfectly, and which recalls Stan Getz's beautiful Focus".
In 1965, Coe was invited to join Count Basie's band (later saying: "I'm glad it didn't come off – I would have lasted about a fortnight") and has since played with the John Dankworth Orchestra, the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band, Derek Bailey's free improvisation group Company, Stan Tracey, Michael Gibbs, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bob Brookmeyer, and performed under Pierre Boulez as well as leading a series of groups of his own, including Coe Oxley & Co with drummer Tony Oxley.
Another recording with Denis Preston is his "Third Stream masterpiece" Zeitgeist from 1977. He played saxophone on John Martyn's 1973 album, Solid Air and clarinet on Paul McCartney's recording of "I'll Give You a Ring", released in 1982.
In 1976, a grant from the Arts Council enabled him to write Zeitgeist - Based On Poems Of Jill Robin, a large-scale orchestral work fusing jazz and rock elements with techniques from classical music which was recorded on EMI records on 29 and 30 July 1976 at Lansdowne Studios based in Holland Park, London. In 1995 he received an honorary degree and the Danish Jazzpar Prize.
Futher information about Tony Coe is found here and here.
This content was excerpted from the Wikipedia article,Tony Coe - Wikipedia, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).
31-08-1996 -- THE MELODY FOUR (LOL COXHILL / TONY COE / STEVE BERESFORD)
Tony Coe: Videos
The Frances Knight Trio with Tony Coe - A Foggy Day In London Town
Allan Holdsworth w/Tony Coe Quintet: New Dawn (BBC 1974)