The Jeff Coffin Mu'tet

Jeff Coffin, well-traveled saxophonist, composer, and member of the Grammy-winning Bela Fleck & the Flecktones, rejects all labels and categories other than “music” and“musician.” In the face of his epic new album Bloom, even those once-broad tags fall short of defining the close coiling of sound, philosophy, and humanity that is the core of his art.

Since 1997, Coffin has traveled the world with the Flecktones, performing with musicians of all walks. Those with whom he has shared the stage and the recording studio include such diverse artists as The Dave Matthews Band, Branford Marsalis, Garth Brooks, Van Morrison, and the Wailers. Along the way, Coffin has absorbed an astounding range of influences. "Whether it be New Orleans 'Second Line', African music, Indian Ragas, folk songs, Alan Lomax field recordings, Jazz, or funk,” he says, “the spirit and breath of the music is what I take away from listening. It's what decides for me whether I like it or not."

When the Flecktones announced a year-long hiatus beginning in January of 2005, Coffin got the chance to channel these varied manifestations of musical spirit into his most ambitious, wide-ranging solo project yet. Set for release in February of 2005, Bloom is an astonishing, genre-smashing extension of all Coffin has accomplished both as a solo artist and a Flecktone. His creative stamp on the CD doesn’t stop with the music: Coffin also took all the photos for the package artwork. “It’s an incredibly personal record,” he says. “This is the first time I’ve taken this kind of time to develop an album. It’s more me than any record I’ve ever done.”

Paradoxically, Coffin’s most personal effort involves the largest group of collaborators yet assembled for one of his solo projects. Bloom is officially credited to the Jeff Coffin Mu’tet, a word he created to describe his ever-shifting cadre of co-conspirators. “The group name comes from the word “mutation,” Coffin explains. “It implies a continual possibility of growth: music changes and is influenced by the things around us.” With personnel varying enormously from track to track, Coffin’s multiple woodwinds are matched by everything from seasoned Nashville session veterans to electro-mavericks, from all of the Flecktones to a community music school children’s choir. While Coffin’s technical facility on his instruments leads him to tackle the most imposing of situations and structures, his vision of music as a continuously fluid, organic medium allows him to weave the most disparate strands together into performances of indescribable singularity and transcendence.

With Bloom, Coffin explores the concept of universal musical spirit that is at the heart of his musical journey. “I’m finding common ground between a wide range of music,” he reflects. “It has to do with the connected nature of everything around me, which becomes clearer to me everyday.” Coffin’s music, an astonishingly successful intersection of genres, styles, and collaborators, is the most convincing proof of his belief in an intangible musical spirit unburdened by any specific borders.