Dan Coy quartet has unique style
The Dan Coy Quartet comes to Gainesville Suturday
for "Jazz Depot...Intimate Evenings of Jazz."
In the jazz scene, where you've been is as important as where you're going, and Dan Coy has been a mainstay of Atlanta's jazz scene for 20 years.
The Dan Coy Quartet, a solid group of Dan on guitar, bassist David Webb, drummer Paul Fallat and Sam Skelton on sax, clarinet, and flute, comes to Gainesville Saturday. They'll play three sets of standards done in their own unique style.
"There's sure to be som Thelonius Monk songs on the list, and lately we've been fooling around with Gershwin," Coy said.
"We may open for Herbie Hancock in a couple of weeks, who's on tour with his new all-Gershwin CD.
Monk and the legendary John Coltrane were major stylistic influences, Coy said.
"Monk influenced me compositionally and even improvisationally," he said.
"He always played with such a beautiful spirit. The feeling was so powerful that you went past the music to what's underneath it all. Coltrane's spirit was so involved in the playing."
As a child of the 60's, Coy took up guitar, but he had discovered jazz before he was out of high school.
"I found jazz through Jimi Hendrix," he said.
"One of his songs was real spacey and improvisational, and I heard that Miles Davis really dug it. So Hendrix led me to Davis."
With drums, bass and guitar, Coy has a three-man rhythm section backing up Skelton on winds.
"That's cool because rhythm is a big part of jazz," he said.
"Guitar is a percussive instrument, after all. When I solo I focus on rhythmic interplay and stretching it out harmonically."
Skelton, he said, is definitely first chair.
"He raises us up to another level of musicianship," he said. "I love to accompany a soloist - that's the best part of my ability - so I love a good horn player who loves to blow."
The performance is the third in The Arts Council's "Jazz depot...Intimate Evenings of Jazz" series.
Listeners sit at small tables grouped around a low stage.
Coy, who prefers being close to the audience, said the room has good acoustics for jazz.