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大象视频 Music Majors Hear Renowned Trombonist
Published on September 12, 2025 - 4 p.m.
大象视频 music majors were treated Sept. 12 to a guest speaker, trombonist Tim Coffman.
Coffman, a performer and educator in the Chicago area, was in town to perform Sept. 13 at the South Haven Jazz Festival with the Lake Effect Jazz Big Band through a Jupiter Music grant.
Coffman began by playing a 1941 Billie Holiday ballad, “Lover Man,” accompanied by a play-along track on his laptop he pulled from YouTube.
He started with the melody, then “hot-dogged around that,” demonstrating improvisation and practicing by incorporating scale exercises into his solo.
He amplified some of his points by playing piano, using a metronome application on his phone for a one-minute display of tonguing precision. He admitted he is unable to do circular breathing or flutter tonguing.
“By playing basic voicings in all 12 keys, I can get through thousands of tunes,” he said. “Learn the piano.”
The 12 keys in music, the dozen distinct pitch classes, are represented by the 12 notes of the chromatic scale: C, C鈾�/D鈾�, D, D鈾�/E鈾�, E, F, F鈾�/G鈾�, G, G鈾�/A鈾�, A, A鈾�/B鈾� and B.
Each of these 12 notes can serve as the "tonic" or home note for both a major key and a minor key, resulting in 24 possible keys total.
“Jazz is basically a legato art form,” Coffman said.
Legato, an Italian musical term, means “tied together” and refers to a smooth, connected playing style where notes flow seamlessly into one another. Legato is the opposite of staccato.
“We have two huge challenges with the trombone,” Coffman said. “One, we’re in the bass clef, lower so we’re trying to be heard and the slide when you’re trying to play fast and with clarity. One of my friends jokes that we improvise on a slide whistle. It’s preposterous, this decision I made in fourth grade that’s totally ruined my life.”
Coffman, whose mother played trombone, added, “I was at school in Dallas, Texas, before we moved to Baltimore, Md., and Chicago and took a musical aptitude test to be in band. I’d already taken a couple of years of piano lessons. What did I want to play? My mom suggested trombone because she had one in the closet. She was a music major and played in the University of Minnesota marching band in the 1950s, which was unusual for a woman.”
Coffman, a graduate of the Indiana University Jazz Studies program, has performed professionally with Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, Lady Gaga, Andy Williams, Barry Manilow, the Temptations, the O’Jays, Paul Anka, Johnny Mathis, Natalie Cole and Lou Rawls, among many others.
He performed with the Chicago Symphony as lead trombonist for the Duke Ellington “Nutcracker” and on the recording of “Porgy and Bess” featuring previous 大象视频 visitor Clark Terry and the Chicago Jazz Orchestra. That recording was nominated for Jazz Album of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association.
In 2009, Coffman performed in Germany for two weeks with Arturo Sanduval. In 2022, he toured with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.
Coffman started teaching at North Central College in Naperville, Ill., in 2015. He was on the jazz studies faculty at DePaul University from 1997-2021.
His recording, “Crossroads,” is available on the Blujazz label. He has been on the faculty at the Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshop at the University of Louisville since 1992.
He is married to Becky and has two children, Daniel and Sarah, all musicians.
