Jerry Andreas of SKB Corporation got in touch with MMR to tell us of the passing of Jim Coffin on April 9th, 2015.
For more than 20 years, Jim was employed in the percussion industry, overseeing marketing, sales, education, artist activities, and product development – first for Premier Percussion then Yamaha Corporation. He served on the Board of Directors of the Percussive Arts Society, was secretary for the PAS Executive Board, and received the PAS President’s Industry Award and PAS Outstanding Supporter Award. As a clinician, soloist, conductor, and adjudicator, he appeared in more than 40 states and five Canadian provinces.
Since retiring in 1993, Coffin was a marketing consultant, an educational services consultant for NAMM, a presenter of music business seminars to colleges and universities, and a percussion clinician for World Projects Tours. Jim was an active editor and writer, a published fiction author, a contributor to Drum Business and Stick It magazines, and for 10 years he was the associate editor of the drumset column in Percussive Notes. Listed among Jim’s many speaking engagements were appearances at Iowa Bandmaster’s Convention, Music Educators National Conference, Percussive Arts Society International Conferences, and American School Band Director’s Association.
Included in his many honors was being noted an outstanding jazz educator in Duke Ellington’s autobiography, Jazz is My Mistress, and being inducted into the Iowa Jazz Educator’s Hall of Fame. The Woodward-Granger School named an event the Jim Coffin Foundations in Jazz Festival. In 2006, Iowa Bandmasters made him an Honorary Lifetime Member. He was one of the founding fathers of the jazz program at UNI and was inducted as the first-ever member into the UNI Jazz Hall of Fame.
Andreas wrote of Coffin in his email, “I consider him my mentor and the reason why I have been in the industry for over 30 years. Jim along with Lenny DiMuzio (Zildjian) and Lloyd McCausland (Remo) were known in the drum industry as the JEWOPS (Junior Executives Without Power). Their influences changed the drum industry and their contributions can been seen for years to come.”
