The News & Observer
Sunday October 14, 2007

Jazz

Gil Coggins / Better Late Than Never / Smalls SRCD-0028
by Owen Cordle

In the unlikely event that the name Gil Coggins ever comes up, it's usually in association with sessions recorded in 1952 and '53, now issued as "Miles Davis, Vol. 1" and "Vol. 2" (Blue Note). Coggins, the pianist on those dates, also recorded with Sonny Rollins, Jackie McLean and John Coltrane. He was born at the right time and place (1924, Harlem) to become a first-generation bebopper. But he never achieved the fame of his contemporaries.

"Better Late Than Never" (Smalls Records), recorded in 2001 and '02, turned out to be an ironic title. Coggins' final album, it is being issued three years after his death. Coggins is an artist you don't mind listening to repeatedly. He has a sparse, swinging style, as if Count Basie had been born a bebop player. There are traces of Bud Powell, Erroll Garner, Shirley Horn and Ahmad Jamal in his playing, though in the case of the latter two, who's to say who influenced whom?

Coggins leads a trio throughout (percussive bassist Mike Fitzbenjamin and drummer Louis Hayes or Jimmy Wormworth), and the performances indicate the group has worked together awhile. Coggins' chord voicings are often dark and tart (he plays a lot of chordal passages), but his accents have a playful side, coming hard and unexpectedly while the bass and drums groove leisurely. His lines can flow as simply as Basie-like one-finger comments or be as complex as a Powell-like spin.

The tunes include "I'm Old Fashioned" (nice chordal walk-up in the melody statement), Charles Mingus' "Smooch," Neal Hefti's "Repetition," Miles Davis' "Vierd Blues," Tadd Dameron's "The Scene Is Clean," and the standards "Isn't It Romantic" and "A House Is Not a Home."