Steve Coleman, who was a beautiful saxophonist, came to see me at Sweet Basil’s when I came back to New York. They didn’t have a dressing room. They had a hole behind the bar that you’re supposed to go down and tell the musicians did it. I said, „I’m supposed to go there and make magic and then come and fall down and break my neck behind the bar and disappear into the ground, right?“ And they sent me outside for an honest to God manhole cover. It wasn’t their fault, though. It was this woman who was representing me. I asked her if there was a dressing room. She said, „Oh, yes.“ I mean, you know, selling me down the river.
Steve Coleman came to see me when I was at Sweet Basil’s with his railroad worker’s outfit on. He had a big Afro and a railroad worker’s cap and coveralls and his big broken shoes and I don’t know why I said to him, „Are you a musician?“ He said, „Yeah.“ So, I asked him to come and sit in with us on Saturday. Well, he tore the house down. Brilliant, and I went to the Blue Note with him and his band. I asked him, because I didn’t have a band then, I said, „Do you know some other musicians like yourself?“ He said, „Yeah.“ And he brought me James W[eid]man and the Johnson Brothers, Mark Johnson on drums and Bill Johnson on bass.
At the Blue Note, we did „Sophisticated Lady.“ I will always remember he did a solo, and the people in the audience, it was like this, like they couldn’t believe it. They were applauding. It was like that, and then we recorded for Enja, and I got that.
abbey lincoln darüber, wie sie steve coleman kennengelernt hat, aus ihrer oral history.
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