George Colligan’s Vision Realized

Interview, From the Magazine, George Colligan

By Josef Woodard I Aug. 26, 2025

“I’m not getting any younger, and in my later years I want to make sure my own visions can be realized,” says pianist George Colligan.
(Photo: Adam Patchik)

From one perspective, the eminently versatile pianist George Colligan claims membership in the population of jazz musicians best-known as first-call collaborators in sideperson mode. His name and reputation are familiar in the footnoted zone just outside the main stage spotlights and on countless album credits over the past 30-something years. A short list of the many liaisons the now 55-year-old can boast includes Cassandra Wilson, Michael Brecker, Miguel Zenón, Gary Bartz, Nicholas Payton, Mark Turner, Stefon Harris, Christian McBride, Gary Thomas (who he considers a strong influence) and many others, and on multiple jazz sub-genre fronts.

Meanwhile, Colligan has also built an impressive legacy and discography of more than 25 titles under his own name, the latest addition a piano-trio gem rescued from the archives. Live At The Jazz Standard manages to document a potent trio setting with legendary drummer Jack DeJohnette and a young Linda May Han Oh on bass, while also commemorating one of New York’s most nurturing and beloved jazz clubs, which closed in 2020, a victim of the COVID shakedown/lockdown.

Colligan, born in New Jersey and raised mostly in Maryland, studied classical trumpet and music education at the Peabody Institute before plunging deep into his busy life as a go-to jazz pianist. After spending 15 years living in New York, he headed west to Portland 14 years ago with his wife, jazz pianist Kerry Politzer and children. He is now a tenured professor at Portland State University.

One of Colligan’s notable students is saxophonist Nicole Glover, who studied with him at the Peabody Institute before going on to considerable fame, playing with Artemis, Wyton Marsalis, Christian McBride and sometimes with Colligan. She appears, for instance, on Colligan’s multifaceted 2014 album You’ll Hear It, which might be considered a “this is my life” portrait of the artist, wending through New York and Portland connections.

“In general,” says Colligan, “I am a fan of variety, and I like to make albums that have a lot of different aspects, whether they be different musicians, instrumentation or types of songs or repertoire, etc. I think there’s a way to maintain consistency without being boring, and there’s a way to go a lot of different places musically without losing focus.

“There are a lot of opinions out there regarding the idea of versatility, and I think versatility can be viewed negatively at times — sort of the ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ idea. Conversely, I think to be a successful musician, you must be versatile in order to make a living — until you find your niche. You’ll Hear It was an opportunity to showcase some different musical moods, but also different musicians whom I admire and have extensive musical relationships with.”

Live At The Jazz Standard, recorded in August 2014, is an example of an archival release waiting to happen and be discovered, brought out into public light and public record. Officially, the live set was a promotional gig for Colligan’s 2013 trio album Endless Mysteries (with DeJohnette joined by Larry Grenadier on bass). Colligan explains that “the recording of that one night at the Jazz Standard sat on a computer hard drive for many years.

“In December 2021, I was stuck in New York: I had caught COVID, and I was quarantining in a hotel in Brooklyn. I was bored and found this recording on my computer. I listened to it, and I said, ‘I need to release this as an album.’ It was truly a special night.” Whirlwind Records head Michael Janisch stepped in to make the release a reality.

Colligan has worked with DeJohnette in many contexts, as part of the drummer’s own band, in a special project with tap dancer wizard Savion Glover and other settings. He enjoys a special sympatico with DeJohnette, commenting, “I think the most obvious thing that connects Jack and me is the piano and drums connection; he started on piano and switched to drums, while I was a trumpeter who played drums and then switched to piano. The connection in general between piano and drums in a jazz band is distinct because you both share the rhythmic space. Also, with piano and drums is the idea that there is both your traditional role and much room for interaction and interpretation.

“Jack is the type of collaborator that never lets you down. He’s in it to win it, and he also wants you to win it. He will keep going as long as you want to keep going. His energy is tremendous.”

Considering influences, Colligan goes far and wide, starting with Wynton Marsalis. “As far as pianists go,” he adds, “the big ones are obvious — Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Kenny Kirkland, Mulgrew Miller, Wynton Kelly, Ahmad Jamal — but I try to have a wide spectrum. To just count pianists as influences is limiting. I’m honestly more influenced by trumpeters. My earliest transcriptions were Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, Clifford Brown. I just took licks I learned from them and played them on piano.”

At this point in Colligan’s development, the paths of sideperson and bandleader make for symbiotic parallels. He knows and ponders the subject as a matter of course.

“In some ways,” Colligan points out, “the realm of the sideperson versus the realm of the bandleader are so different. Certain instruments tend to lead people more toward being a sideperson because they tend to be viewed as accompanists. If you play drums or bass or piano or guitar, you can go your whole life without being a bandleader. Some people are completely content with that.

“I did an interview with Buster Williams for my blog, Jazz Truth, and he said something about how being a sideperson was the highest honor. I came up as a musician identifying with this idea. For me, the highest compliment and the truest validation of one’s musicianship is to be asked by another musician to join them for a performance.”

In his case, though, he admits, “I wanted to be, and I still want to be, a bandleader because I want to play my own compositions. Plus, I want to have more influence over the direction of the music and to sort of chart my own destiny as opposed to waiting for the phone to ring. But there’s so much more responsibility as a bandleader. Plus, there is so much more luck and intangibility involved.

“As I get older, I am focusing more on my own stuff. It’s not to say that I don’t want to play as a sideperson at all, because, honestly, I love the challenge, and I still love to collaborate and make music as long as it’s with great people and great musicians. But I’m not getting any younger, and in my later years I want to make sure my own visions can be realized.” DB