GRAMMY Winning Coffin Chooses Yamaha

GRAND RAPIDS, MI (March 21, 2003) — Yamaha artist Jeff Coffin, saxophonist/composer, has been a member of the GRAMMY® Award winning Bela Fleck & the Flecktones since 1997. Formed in 1989, the group's eclectic sound is a genre-bending mix of bluegrass, jazz, world, and pop influences. Coffin won a GRAMMY Award with the Flecktones in 2001 for "Best Contemporary Jazz Recording of 2000" and has had one of his own compositions nominated for a GRAMMY as well. Coffin has recently begun playing the new Yamaha Z series saxophone, the newest custom series saxophone.

"It plays very easily and evenly," says Coffin of his Yamaha YTS-82Z tenor saxophone. "The pitch is really great live and in the studio. One of the major things that is different with this series than any other Yamaha I have ever tried is that it has lots of character. I had been playing another saxophone for 20 years and this horn plays easier and is more in tune. I'm playing the unlacquered version with a gold plated 'G' neck. Yamaha wanted to develop a horn for the next generation of players, and they have done what it takes to get there."

Coffin also performs with his group called the Jeff Coffin Mu'Tet, a mutation of a larger group, the Vibration Arts Ensemble. His versatility has made him a highly in-demand session player, appearing on nearly 100 recordings, as well as teaching and conducting clinics at schools across the country.

Coffin has performed with some of the music industry's finest, including Van Morrison; the Dave Matthews Band; Medeski, Martin & Wood; Phish; Bruce Hornsby; Chick Corea; Garth Brooks and the Dixie Chicks.

"Jeff's full range of experience as a live and studio player was incredible to draw on when developing the 82Z," says Kurt Witt, Wind Instrument product manager, Yamaha Corporation of America, Band & Orchestral Division. "His creativity in exploring what the instrument can do musically is exactly what the design of the Z series saxophones were intended to do."

Coffin has released three CD's: his debut disc, Outside the Lines, was released in 1997 on Artifex Records. The follow-up, Commonality, was released two years later on Compass Records, and the Jeff Coffin Mu'Tet CD, Go-Round, was released in 2001 on Compass Records.

For more information, write Yamaha Corporation of America, Band & Orchestral Division, P.O. Box 6600, Buena Park, CA 90620; telephone (714) 522-9011 or send e-mail to infostation@yamaha.com.

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