“One of the best kept secrets in jazz” (All About Jazz), the brilliant New York organist George Colligan, also adept on piano, drums and trumpet, thrills with Portland guitarist Dan Balmer and peerless Seattle drummer John Bishop.

Currently serving on the faculty at Portland State University, Colligan was born in New Jersey and raised in the Baltimore area. Colligan studied classical trumpet at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. He cut his teeth as a musician in Washington, DC, before moving to New York and playing with such notables as Cassandra Wilson, Don Byron, Jack DeJohnette and Ravi Coltrane.

In New York, Colligan joined the faculty at The Juilliard School. He left to become an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg before landing on Portland State’s faculty last year, where he leads small ensembles and big bands with longtime professor Charles Gray.

Best known as a pianist and composer, Colligan has over 70 credits as a sideman and is prolific as a leader, with more than a dozen recordings, all with original compositions. His music is at once groovy and funky, mysterious and deeply romantic, full of Colligan’s trademark verve on the keyboard.

Colligan also writes a popular blog called Jazz Truth (jazztruth.blogspot.com).

– DB