Todd Coolman, Bassist/Jazz Educator
Todd Coolman has enjoyed a long career as a jazz musician and jazz educator. He played with the James Moody Quartet for 25 years, and performed/recorded with many jazz greats including Horace Silver, Stan Getz, Benny Golson, Art Farmer, and the Village Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.
Coolman’s academic career includes posts in the jazz studies programs at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Purchase (where he has taught since 1998) and the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. He directed the Skidmore Jazz Institute from 2011-18 and remains on the faculty.
Coolman is featured on 14 Aebersold Play-A-Long recordings. He recently launched a podcast, The Cool Toddcast, featuring stories about and interviews with leading jazz musicians.
When and how did you meet Jamey Aebersold?
In early 1979, I was playing a gig with Horace Silver at the Village Vanguard. At intermission, Jamey came up and introduced himself. He knew that I had studied with (jazz educator) David Baker at Indiana University. Jamey asked whether I had considered teaching. I was 24 and had just moved to New York City. Jamey had six workshops in six cities. It was a gig, it paid so much a week and that was it.
At his first jazz camp (when auditioning jazz bass students) this 16-year-old kid with blond curly hair played the hell out of the bass—it was (jazz bassist) Larry Grenadier. ’He was 16. I was 24. What was I going to teach him?’
I started to develop an affinity for teaching.
Describe the setting and set-up for recording the Aebersold Play-A-Longs in Jamey’s basement.
We’d do these sessions on a Saturday morning after the conclusion of the Aebersold jazz camp at the University of Louisville on Friday evening. We’d begin at 9:00 a.m. and people left for the (Louisville) airport by noon.
Two other jazz camp faculty members, Dan Haerle (piano) and Ed Soph (drums) and I would record 10 to 12 tracks. So the playing had to be on point and in sync. We had to keep it simple. And we also considered what would be instructional and reliable for the user.
The basement ‘recording studio’ had three rooms; one with stacks of LPs and a grand piano, a chair and a desk (where Jamey sat) and not much else. Haerle played piano in this room. (Jamey would drape a quilt over the piano to serve as a baffle for the sound.)
Another small room that was near the back door of the basement had Jamey’s (books) inventory and mailing materials, postage scales and a photocopying machine. That’s where I played. The third room was an unfinished room with a ping-pong table in which Soph sat with his drum kit. There was no visual contact between the three of us. Jamey would use a metronome as a click track to provide the tempo. We all had headsets.
Later, Jamey used a microphone to transmit instructions to us on the headsets. It was like my conscience speaking. ‘OK, take the second ending.’ It was like an elf in the ozone.
After I got used to that, it was the way to give us the best chance of getting it on the first take.
In many cases, we weren’t told in advance what tunes we would do. Jamey would just show up with the lead sheets.
There was no horn player to accompany us so we had to simulate a soloist with no one there. Sometimes Jamey would ‘sing’ the melody over their headsets.
What else stands out to you about those sessions?
Jamey had the idea of doing a (trumpeter) Tom Harrell Play-A-Long and he had Tom provide his own compositions and notated arrangements.
We had to play tunes we’d never seen or heard (for the most part), but the arrangements were so good and clear that they did it (the recording) in one take. As I recall, it was one of the shortest sessions ever.
What is the legacy of Jamey Aebersold and the Aebersold Play-A-Longs?
I consider him the pied piper of jazz education and spreading jazz music. He touched a lot of people who were not aspiring jazz players and he helped in the overall exposure of the art form.
Jamey’s methodology is still valid and is still an important ingredient for a maturing student.