The New York Times
Sunday September 23, 2007
Arts & Leisure p.32

Playlist

Gil Coggins / Better Late Than Never / Smalls SRCD-0028
by Ben Ratliff

The songs on "Better Late Than Never" (Smalls), by the pianist Gil Coggins, are fairly bright and confident, but the overwhelming feeling of the record is beautifully dark. Mr. Coggins, who died in 2004 at the age of 79, was a member of Harlem's bebop fraternity, playing with Miles Davis and Jackie McLean and Sonny Rollins. This album, from his final sessions, here and there has phrases and harmonies particular to his time and the people he ran with, but it is mostly slow, quiet and deliberate, the opposite of glibness. It's a special record, one that seems to lay open that style of playing and make it more transparent to the listener.