Steve Coleman & Reflex - Bologna Jazz Festival

Bologna Jazz Festival is a music festival dedicated to live jazz in the best theatres and music clubs of Bologna and neighbouring cities.

The figure of Steve Coleman, a Chicagoan born in 1956, is one of the most compelling and fascinating in contemporary jazz. Raised to the sounds of R&B, he found an important stimulus for his musical growth in the veterans of the Chicago jazz scene, among whom Von Freeman stands out. Upon moving to New York, he had the opportunity to play with the very different big bands of Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, Sam Rivers and Cecil Taylor. His early New York years also saw a series of important collaborations as a sideman: with Dizzy Gillespie, David Murray, Dave Holland, Michael Brecker and Abbey Lincoln.

The trio Reflex is a true concentrate of this musical aesthetic, with its metropolitan rhythms and metric and melodic structures with complex geometries that cast their gaze beyond the boundaries of Western music. Since its beginnings in 1993, Reflex's appearances have been very rare and characterised by a continuous renewal of the line-up. Alongside Coleman have been Reggie Washington and Gene Lake (1993), David Virelles and Kassa Overall (2011), again Virelles and Marcus Gilmore (2011), and Anthony Tidd and Sean Rickman (2017).

This new tour will focus on maximally spontaneous music, with very little previously composed material. Joining Coleman in his polyrhythmic and polytonal daring will this time be Rich Brown and Sean Rickman.