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TMCNet: Remix master: City native gets Grammy nod [News and Record, Greensboro, N.C.]

[December 18, 2009]

Remix master: City native gets Grammy nod [News and Record, Greensboro, N.C.]

(News & Record (Greensboro, NC) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Dec. 18--GREENSBORO -- Dance club regulars and electronic dance music fans know Dean Coleman's work.

The Greensboro native creates original and remixed dance music, which has been used by major acts and in Dolce & Gabbana fashion shows in Milan.

He has traveled the world to bring his DJ talents and music to clubs from New York to Dubai.

He composed the classical piano score for Angeles Woo's short film "The Glass Beads," shown at the Cannes Film Festival and Venice Film Festival.

He created music for and starred in an international TV commercial for the electronics giant Pioneer Corporation.

Now, at 38, Coleman's work has gained the attention of The Recording Academy. It has nominated him for his first Grammy Award, for a remix of a song that he wrote.

Coleman wrote and produced "I Want You." A remix -- or alternate version -- by Dave Aude was among the five nominated for Best Remixed Recording, nonclassical.

As the original artist, Coleman also gets the nod.

Although the Grammys have been around for 52 years, the best remixed recording category is relatively new. The Recording Academy added it in 1997 as "best remixer," then later changed it to best remixed recording, Coleman says.


He said he was honored and taken aback by the nomination. He plans to attend the Jan. 31 awards ceremony in Los Angeles.

"But my biggest honor is to do what I love for a living," Coleman says from New York, where he works 16 to 18 hours a day in his studio.

Inklings of that future career surfaced during Coleman's elementary school years in Greensboro, although no one likely realized it back then.

He started piano lessons as a tot, then learned saxophone. But when it came to practicing piano, "He didn't want to follow those notes," says his mother, Marie Coleman. "He wanted to do it his way." Although Coleman disliked the lessons, he loved music.

At ages 6 and 7, he would put John Williams' "Star Wars" soundtrack on the turntable and play along with his "Star Wars" figures.

"I always wanted to make that kind of music," Coleman recalls. "I wanted to make music with emotion." After graduation from Page High School, he headed to UNC-Wilmington, where he could combine studies with his love for swimming and surfing.

But when he transferred to UNC-Chapel Hill, he needed another outlet.

"I never really drank and partied a lot," Coleman says. "A friend was a DJ and played fraternity parties. He said I should do that." He learned to mix records on turntables, blending one song with the next for a continuous stream of music.

His father, Melvin Glenn "Dean" Coleman, bought him a trailer to transport his DJ equipment. But his mother wanted him to concentrate on school.

"At first, I didn't like the idea that he was DJing," Marie Coleman recalls. "But he was happy." Pioneer took notice. It hired the outgoing Coleman in 1996 to demonstrate its DJ products at trade shows.

Coleman moved to Atlanta, finished his communications degree and traveled the world showing products for Pioneer and Roland, the electronic musical instrument maker.

At the same time, he continued his DJ gigs and taught himself audio engineering skills.

His work attracted the attention of electronic dance music DJs and producers.

In 2002, he produced his own version of "Safe From Harm," a song by electronic music duo Narcotic Thrust.

Another duo, Deep Dish, paid Coleman to release his mix on their Yoshitoshi record label.

It topped the Billboard dance chart.

"That was my first production that really got noticed," Coleman says.

He also has produced and remixed music for, among others, Roger Sanchez and Felix da Housecat.

Now, he has his own label, Musiciz, for his underground releases available on online music stores Beatport and iTunes.

When he remixes a song, he rebuilds the musical track and rearranges the vocals so it sounds different.

Among his popular remixes: Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack" and "My Love"; Coldplay's "Clocks"; and "Sing," a collaboration among Annie Lennox, Madonna and others to benefit AIDS prevention in Africa.

Getting noticed in the field takes years of hard work, Coleman says.

That notice happens when fans hear a producer's music on radio or in clubs, then come to watch them DJ.

Or perhaps he might tour with another producer, as he did with Deep Dish and Roger Sanchez.

"You have to take it seriously every day to make it work," he says.

He felt particularly honored when Apple Inc. profiled him on the company Web site as an expert on its Logic Pro music software.

"It was like a nerd fantasy come true," he says.

The Grammy nomination has put Coleman in a brighter spotlight. He has received congratulatory e-mails from Pioneer and friends across the country.

Back in Greensboro, his mother and sister, Margaret Szott, are proud.

His father passed away in 2003.

"He is a loving and giving person, and he works very hard at what he does," his mother says.

"I have always known that he would do well in whatever he did." The Grammy nod, Dean Coleman says, gives him more opportunity to shine. He's hard at work on a new track for the artist Timbaland. He plans to release an album of original material in 2010.

"This nomination isn't to stop and smell the roses," Coleman says. "It's like a kick in the butt to work even harder." Contact Dawn DeCwikiel-Kane at 373-5204 or dawn.kane@news-record.com To see more of the News & Record or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.news-record.com.

Copyright (c) 2009, News and Record, Greensboro, N.C.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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