Jeff Coffin | Courtesy Sound Artist Support/Greg Kessler

Jeff Coffin leads one of the great jazz-fusion acts on the planet, the Mu’Tet. But he has made his bones recording and touring first with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, and now Dave Matthews Band.

Coffin, on a break from DMB, brings the Mu’Tet to Growler’s American Grill on Friday. This amazing unit includes a dream rhythm section — Roy “Future Man” Wooten on the drum set (as opposed to his trademark Drumitar) and Felix Pastorius, a son of Jaco Pastorius and a tremendous musician in his own right. Read more and get show details in Top Tickets.

Among other topics, Coffin addresses the legion of Dave Matthews Band haters (at my instigation) with this vigorous defense:

“I’m always reminded, there’s no statues of critics,” he said. “”I think that the longevity of this band speaks for itself. The band’s in its 22nd year, and it’s not a fluke. It’s great songwriting. Dave’s an amazing leader. He’s an amazing person. I mean, his charity work alone, which is completely unsung – most people have no idea what he does behind the scenes – is worthy of him being a rock star, just by that itself.

“Everybody’s always pushing. Everybody’s always practicing and working on things and trying to get better. It’s a fantastic group of people to be around, and a fantastic group of musicians to play with.

“The crew has been there forever, also. When I joined, the guy that had been there the least amount of time in the audio department I think had been there for eight years. You don’t hear about that kind of longevity, unless it’s a very special group of people. And this is a very special group of people.”

We stream plenty of music from Coffin’s last two albums, “Into The Air” and “Live!” — “Tag,” “Backin’ Up,” “Loueke” and “Lucky 13.”

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