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Artist
John Coates, Jr.
11+ albums
jazz pianojazz
about
John Francis Coates Jr. (February 17, 1938 – November 22, 2017) was an American jazz pianist, composer and arranger. He regularly performed at the Deer Head Inn and the Celebration of the Arts in the Pocono Mountains for over 50 years. Coates was born in Trenton, New Jersey and attended Ewing High School. His father was a full-time performing musician and a bandleader, and his mother was a dancer and actress. He began his formal study every Thursday travelling from Trenton to New York City at age 8 with Urana Clarke at the Mannes College of Music on full scholarship. Early influences were credited to listening to Symphony Sid on his AM radio. On Wednesdays, from age 11 to 14, John would play clarinet with his father at the Trenton YMCA dance hall night, where he learned to improvise. His father began teaching him jazz piano around age 12. Another of his father's students, Jack Welgund, influenced Coates and talked him into joining the Trenton musicians union at age 12. By age 14 he was playing gigs 2 nights a week as well as weekends. At age 16 was asked to play 6 nights a week during the summer at the Deer Head Inn, where he lived and ate dinner with the proprietors, Bob and Fey Lehr. It was that summer at the Deer Head where Savoy Records discovered him. He recorded his first LP, Portrait, with bassist Wendell Marshall and drummer Kenny Clarke and produced by Rudy Van Gelder, for Savoy Records during his senior year of high school. He performed on the Steve Allen, Mike Do
