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The term " M-Base" is used in several ways. In the 1980s, a loose collective of young African American musicians including Steve Coleman, Graham Haynes, Cassandra Wilson, Geri Allen, Robin Eubanks, and Greg Osby emerged in Brooklyn with a new sound and specific ideas about creative expression. Using a term coined by Steve Coleman, they called these ideas "M-Base-concept" (short for " macro -basic array of structured extemporization") and critics have used this term to categorize this scene's music as a jazz style."…the word M-Base had spread. But it spread in association with the music, and so it became for them a musical style." (Steve Coleman, interviewed by Julian Joseph for BBC Radio 3 Jazz Legends, 2001) But Coleman stressed "M-Base" doesn't denote a musical style but a way of thinking about creating music. Coleman also refuses the word "jazz" as a label for his music and the music tradition represented by musicians like John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong, etc. However, the musicians of the M-Base movement, which also included dancers and poets, strived for common creative musical languages, so their early recordings show many similarities reflecting their common ideas, the experiences of working together, and their similar cultural background. To label this kind of music, jazz critics have established the word "M-Base" as a jazz style for lack of a better term, distorting its original meaning.e.g. The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, London/New York 2001, p. 739
Pianist Andrew Hill said about Greg Osby: "He has an incredible sense of rhythm and harmonic accuracy, and picks the right notes with a precision that isn't common to people with his technical versatility. He's developed into a fully rounded artist who can play various styles extremely well – better than most."Quoted in liner notes of CD The Invisible Hand by Greg Osby Greg Osby said about Gary Thomas: "He's extremely intelligent and has a capacity for absorption that exceeds that of most people that I know … He has his own compositional and improvisational method that is peerless in my opinion. He's my favourite tenor saxophone player on the contemporary scene." Clarinettist and composer Don Byron called Steve Coleman "an exceptional personality of American music history."Christian Broecking, Der Marsalis-Faktor, 1995, p. 120
Antecedents to M-Base were identified by jazz critic Bill Milkowski as the Miles Davis-led band featured on recordings like 1975's Agharta; he noted the combination of Sonny Fortune's acerbic saxophone lines atop the syncopated grooves performed by the rhythm section of drummer Al Foster, bassist Michael Henderson, and rhythm guitarist Reggie Lucas.
Although the musical line initially called "M-Base" became more than ever focused on Steve Coleman, a number of younger musicians (e.g. a range of excellent drummers) have made substantial creative contributions to his music and his influence is to be found in several musical fields – both in terms of music technique and of the music's meaning. Pianist Vijay Iyer (who was chosen as "Jazz Musician of the Year 2010" by the Jazz Journalists Association) said, "It's hard to overstate Steve Coleman's influence. He's affected more than one generation, as much as anyone since John Coltrane. It's not just that you can connect the dots by playing seven or 11 beats. What sits behind his influence is this global perspective on music and life. He has a point of view of what he does and why he does it."
The M-Base concept reminds of the creative energy of the bebop originators, their loose collective, and also of their musical goals. The concept does not include "neo-classical jazz", free music without structures, fusion music, music which isn't mainly improvised, or music shaped with respect to commercial aspects.
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