BRANDON COLEMAN PROJECT

Seating times: 7:00pm, 8:30pm, & 10:15pm. Doors open 30 minutes early.

TICKET AVAILABILITY:  IF SELECTED TICKETS ARE “SOLD OUT”, PLEASE CHECK AVAILABILITY FOR ANOTHER TIME AND ANOTHER SEATING TYPE

JAZZ@theEDGE! Presents: Kamasi|Flying Lotus keyboardist BRANDON COLEMAN PROJECT

Ian Martin – bass
Oscar Seaton Jr – drums
Howard Wiley – saxophone

Growing up in South Central, Los Angeles, Brandon Coleman’s musical influences didn’t fall into the usual stereotype of Hip Hop and radio hits. He had saved up money from selling candy at school to buy the new Bone Thugs-N-Harmony tape in the mid-90s, but his enjoyment with it was short-lived. Coleman remembers, “I didn’t have that tape for more than five hours before my older brother came in my room with his upright bass and threw it down, walked over to my stereo, grabbed my tape, and snapped it in half! He said, ‘You wanna do your homework to some music? Listen to this,’ and he turned on Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew. That’s how it was in my household. There would be a lot of times kids at school would be singing a popular song and I wouldn’t know it. Instead, I was blasting Kenny Kirkland and Chick Corea and they’d all think I was speaking another language.”

Eventually, the musical language that seemed so foreign to his peers would be the same one to secure Brandon’s major influence in shaping modern music. Heeding his brother’s tough-love mentorship, Brandon began teaching himself piano at age 16. Soon, elders close to him began using words like prodigy, autodidactic, wunderkind, and gifted to explain his natural genius. By age 17, Brandon landed his first touring gig with Brian McKnight. He’s since lent his talents to some of the world’s top artists from Babyface, Roy Hargrove, Stanley Clarke, Terrance Blanchard, Christian McBride, Rachelle Ferrell, and Sheila E., to Alicia Keys and Childish Gambino. Coleman has been a prominent contributor to albums by Kamasi Washington, Thundercat, and Flying Lotus, among others. He also opened for Flying Lotus on his 2019 national tour. With his innovative capabilities, Brandon Coleman has proven himself as a keyboard maestro, vocalist, composer, producer, arranger, and astral traveler.

Coleman’s latest electronic funk odyssey is Interstellar Black Space, set to launch on May 13, 2022. He explains, “I wanted to write some music that reflected how I felt about time, space, and celestial energy. I love space movies like Interstellar and The Martian – and I thought to myself, if I was traveling through space what would I want to hear? I wanted to create some astral Negro music.”

With this follow up to 2018’s Resistance, Coleman once again shows the sweeping range within his repertoire: Among the bunch, there’s the ethereal title track “Interstellar Black Space,” the spiraling jazz-fusion “We Change” (ft. Kamasi Washington), the nostalgic old-school crooning of “Be with Me,” the hard-hitting funk vibes of “On the One,” and of course the lead single, “Blast Off,” that would surely make Prince proud.  Brandon Coleman is the real deal, no Astroturf; this 16-track album will make you want to get up as much as you’ll want to get down. Bound for a meteoric rise to the top, it’ll be one funky ride, indeed.