Last September, Brandon Coleman ran the music at the Hollywood Bowl for a Minnie Riperton tribute that put Stevie Wonder and George Benson on the same bill. This September, he plays a room with 99 seats in it.
The Brandon Coleman Ensemble performs at Sierra Madre Playhouse on Sunday, September 6, 2026, at 8:00 p.m., as part of Jazz @ the Playhouse. Tickets are $35. Guitarist Greg Porée, who sits on the Playhouse board and lives in Pasadena, curates the series.
The theater sits one town east of Pasadena, and its audiences come from Sierra Madre, Pasadena, Altadena, Arcadia and across Greater Los Angeles, according to the Playhouse. Pasadena Weekly has called it a “jewel.” Pasadena Transit routes 31 and 32 run from Fair Oaks Avenue and Woodbury Road in Altadena to the Metro A Line’s Sierra Madre Villa Station, at 149 North Halstead Street in Pasadena, where riders can transfer to the Metro 268 bus into Sierra Madre. The 268 runs from 5:56 a.m. to 9:26 p.m.
The program will span original compositions, improvisational dialogue and rhythmic drive alongside reinterpretations of modern classics, the Playhouse said in an announcement describing a sound that merges electronic texture and soulful grooves. Coleman leads five musicians on piano and keys, bass, drums and two additional instrumental voices.
Coleman is a pianist, keyboardist, composer, producer, vocalist and music director, a Brainfeeder recording artist and a longtime member of the West Coast Get Down. He was raised in South Central Los Angeles, where his early foundation came in the church, and he studied at the Colburn School under jazz educators Clay Jenkins and Lee Secard. He has played the Hollywood Bowl, Royal Albert Hall, NPR’s Tiny Desk and The Tonight Show, and he composes for visual media. His collaborators include Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, Babyface, Flying Lotus, Kamasi Washington, Thundercat, Roy Hargrove, Rachelle Ferrell, George Benson and Childish Gambino, according to the Playhouse.
Booking artists at that level into a small room is stated policy. “We want to have intimate versions of world class artists at accessible prices,” Matt Cook, the Playhouse’s artistic and executive director, told the L.A. Dance Chronicle in March 2025. Jazz tickets across the series range from $12 to $35. Organist Carey Frank plays August 9, the Marlonius Jazz Orchestra November 8 and Gregg Karukas December 13.
The series bills him as jazz, and so does he. “I still consider Resistance a jazz record for sure,” he told theLAnd magazine in 2021 of the Brainfeeder album he released in September 2018.
Sierra Madre Playhouse is at 87 West Sierra Madre Boulevard, Sierra Madre, CA 91024. Tickets are available at sierramadreplayhouse.org or by calling (626) 355-4318 and pressing 2. Doors open at 7:00 p.m. and the box office opens at 7:30 p.m. Street parking is free, with permits required only between 2:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m., and free public lots sit behind the theater and along Sierra Madre Boulevard until midnight. Wheelchair accessible seating is arranged through Patron Services at the same number.
He was 16 and had barely started on piano when his brother handed him a Herbie Hancock album called Sunlight. Coleman put it on and could not work out how the voice on the record was doing what it did. “That was it for me,” he said in a biography published by his label — the sound of a machine singing, years before he brought it into a room with 99 chairs.
NEED TO KNOW
Jazz @ the Playhouse presents the Brandon Coleman Ensemble on Sunday, September 6, 2026, at 8:00 p.m., with doors at 7:00 p.m. and the box office opening at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $35, walk-up sales are accepted when seats remain, and TeenTix pass holders ages 13 to 19 pay $5. The concert takes place at Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 West Sierra Madre Boulevard, Sierra Madre, CA 91024, in a 99-seat auditorium. Parking is free: street parking throughout the neighborhood requires a permit only between 2:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m., and free public lots sit behind the theater and along Sierra Madre Boulevard, closing at midnight; limited metered spaces are available near Baldwin Avenue. Wheelchair accessible seating is arranged through Patron Services. Riders on the Metro A Line can reach the area from Sierra Madre Villa Station at 149 North Halstead Street in Pasadena and transfer to the Metro 268 bus, which runs from 5:56 a.m. to 9:26 p.m.; Pasadena Transit routes 31 and 32 connect that station to Fair Oaks Avenue and Woodbury Road in Altadena. For more, call (626) 355-4318 and press 2, or visit www.sierramadreplayhouse.org.
Ticket link (Arts People box office): https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?show=306829
Event page: https://www.sierramadreplayhouse.org/event/coleman2026
Venue: https://www.sierramadreplayhouse.org
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