Coles, Johnny (actually, John)
Coles, Johnny (actually, John)
Coles, Johnny (actually, John), trumpeter, flugelhornist; b. Trenton N.J., July 3, 1926; d. Philadelphia, Pa., Dec. 21, 1997. He was mainly self-taught, although he had some training while playing in a military band in 1941. He was an important part of the Philadelphia scene, working there since at least 1946 with John Coltrane, Jimmy Heath, Ray Bryant and many others. He and Coltrane toured with Eddie Vin-son (1948–49); Coles worked with Earl Bostic in the mid–1950s, as well as with James Moody (1956–58) and Oscar Pettiford (in Greenwich Village; 1958). He worked with arranger/composer Gil Evans’s band from 1958–64, and then played on and off with Charles Mingus through most of the 1960s In the late 1960s-early 1970s, he worked with the Herbie Hancock Sextet (1968–69), briefly with the Ray Charles Orch. (1969–70), and then with Duke Ellington’s Orch. (1970–74). He rejoined Charles for two more years after Ellington died, then played with Art Blakey (1976), and Dameronia and Mingus Dynasty through the early 1980s. He moved to Los Angeles in 1985 and worked for a year with Count Basie. However, his health had already begun to fail, and he moved back to Philadelphia in 1990. He was sporadically active until his death, although he suffered fromlong periods of illness in 1995 and shortly before his death.
Discography
Warm Sound > (1961); Little Johnny C (1963); Katumbo (1971); New Morning (1982).
—Lewis Porter