Cecilia Coleman: She Can Do--and Teach Too

Cecilia Coleman, the talented modern mainstream jazz pianist, has finally fulfilled a dream: She’s become bicoastal.

In July, the Long Beach native moved into a tiny apartment on New York City’s Upper West Side and now plans to spend most of her time there, with regular trips home to Southern California.

“I feel like you have to go to New York eventually, if you play jazz,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to move for the past 10 years, since the first time I went there. But I was married, and it wasn’t easy. Now I’m not, and I also have a steady teaching gig at Cal State Long Beach, which gives me a little bit of security to branch out.”

Coleman, who appears with her quintet Thursday at Steamers in Fullerton and Friday at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, said she enjoys the compactness of New York--”You’re close to everything you need”--and the city’s energy. And, naturally, she likes the jazz goings-on. In just more than a month in town, she’s made good contacts--one is her ex-bassist, former Orange County resident Danton Boller--and worked several gigs, including some under her own name.

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The pianist said breaking into the heralded New York City jazz scene is up to her. “Who’s going to stop me except myself?” she asked rhetorically. “There are so many venues, and I got very lucky, getting hired. But then I have three CDs out. I am a player. The least I can do is try to get work for myself. Whether other people start hiring me as a sideman, that’s up to them. But I’ve started.”

New York is not perfect, however. One of the things Coleman misses most is collegial friendliness; many musicians in New York are aggressive, even negative, she said. “Maybe it’s because too many people are trying to do the same thing, but they’re generally not very light-spirited, which is sad. I love playing music. The players in my band [in Southern California] are my best friends, and the music is an extension of that. I miss that back there.”

Though Coleman hasn’t performed in a while with her quintet--including trumpeter Steve Huffsteter, saxophonist Jerry Pinter, bassist Christoph Luty and drummer Thomas White--she believes all will go well on her engagements. “My playing feels a lot looser in a lot of ways,” she said.

She looks forward to her monthly stints at Cal State Long Beach, where she is on the applied faculty staff and teaches, naturally enough, jazz piano to six eager students.

“I can give them serious lessons,” she said. “I don’t have to baby them. I start them off with transcriptions. Those who don’t have a strong background, I give them a tape by people like Bud Powell, Wynton Kelly and Red Garland. Then, as they progress, I narrow down” the subjects.

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Coleman, who continues to transcribe solos for herself as a way to get ideas, finds teaching rewarding--and demanding. “You have to know a lot of stuff, have to understand what’s happening before you can teach it to someone else,” she said. “So I find myself really sitting down and thinking about things.”

The pianist has long been a student herself. Her teachers include Eloise Ferguson, who exposed Coleman to Kelly and Garland; vibist Charlie Shoemake, who taught her the intricacies of jazz harmony and the value of transcription; and, most recently, innovative saxophonist George Garzone, a Boston-based musician who also has a home in New York.

“I like his approach,” she said. “He’s giving me ideas to expand my vocabulary. I’m combining that with what I already know, with the idea of taking it all to a different place. That seems like the natural next step for me.”

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As to whether Coleman plans to live permanently in New York, time will tell.

“I think I’ll stay for a while,” she said. “I like it there. Though my home is [in Southern California], New York has always felt like home in a way too. I didn’t feel like there was any change at all when I moved into my apartment.”

* Cecilia Coleman’s quintet plays Thursday at Steamers Cafe, 138 W. Commonwealth Ave., Fullerton. 8:30 p.m. Free. (714) 871-8800.