Charlie Coffeen Of Sidewalk Chalk Gives Dilla S Donuts The Big Band Treatment

Detroit producer and rapper James Dewitt Yancey—better known as J Dilla—died in 2006 from complications of a rare blood disorder. His stature continues to grow, though, and on Friday, February 9, at Thalia Hall, a 15-piece band led by Sidewalk Chalk keyboardist Charlie Coffeen will re-create Dilla’s classic 2006 instrumental album Donuts in its entirety. Some of Coffeen’s Sidewalk Chalk bandmates are helping out: trombonist David Ben-Porat wrote the horn parts, and Sam Trump is one of three featured singers. Grammy winner Robert “Sput” Searight, who’s worked with Sidewalk Chalk as a producer, plays drums. “Dilla’s songs are just as worthy of theoretical analysis as a Mozart sonata,” Coffeen says. “An MPC is just as valuable and culturally important as, say, a cello or a French horn.”

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