Skip to main content
Winters are so cold in Winnipeg, they drove George Colligan to sing.
It was late 2009, and the then-40-year-old pianist found himself, a newly hired professor at the University of Manitoba, bored and stuck inside due to midwestern Canada's frigid winter. A constant musical tinkerer, Colligan decided to attempt something he hadn't done since he wrote his high school's fight song decades before.
"I tried to sing into a microphone, and it was terrible," he says with a chuckle. "But I started to write some lyrics, and it just kind of snowballed from there—no pun intended."
Colligan eventually found a warmer-climate career as a jazz professor at Portland State University, and continued to mess around with vocals, eventually developing his skills into something he felt was publicly presentable. The results of that effort, a nine-track record called Write Them Down—his 27th album, and one on which he played every instrument—will be performed for the first time before an audience at Jimmy Mak's on Dec. 7.
With layered harmonies, background vocals and gorgeous keyboard and trumpet work, Write Them Down straddles the line between a straight-ahead contemporary jazz album and an homage to Stevie Wonder. It's impressive in many ways, not the least of which is that Colligan did all of the recording in his office, bedroom and garage during small breaks from watching his kids over the past three years.
But that's the kind of thing Colligan does best. He tinkers his way into excellence.
"I still have a lot of aspirations as a musician," Colligan says. "I really never want to stop growing. Sometimes it's the only thing that makes sense to me."
For those shockingly few locals who recognize his name from the more than 100 recordings he took part in as a sideman during the 15 years he lived in New York—before his first teaching gig in Winnipeg—it isn't surprising to see him trying something new.
Colligan spent most of his formative musical years studying classical trumpet, only beginning his foray into jazz piano as a result of growing frustration with the instrument. He spent a few years after college mastering it, eventually getting gigs touring the world with jazz legends like Gary Bartz, Cassandra Wilson and Jack DeJohnette. In the intervening years, he has learned the bass and drums, and adapted his classical trumpet to play jazz.
Despite the fact that Colligan has received well-deserved praise for his past releases, he has yet to become a name brand outside of small jazz circles. But that fact won't stop him.
"A lot of people around here don't know what I do, but whatever," Colligan says. "An artist sees things the way they are and is unsatisfied. And they have to tell the world their view of it. They'll write a song or paint a picture, and hopefully people will see it. That's where it gets a little fuzzy."
SEE IT: George Colligan plays Jimmy Mak's, 221 NW 10th Ave., on Monday, Dec. 7. 8 pm. $12. Under 21 permitted until 9:30 pm.
Willamette Week