In Harlem, New York City, he attended The High School of Music & Art.
[4] In 1946, Coggins met Miles Davis while stationed at Jefferson Barracks in Missouri.
After his discharge he began playing piano professionally, working with Davis on several of his Blue Note and Prestige releases.
Coggins also recorded with John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Ray Draper, and Jackie McLean.
He continued performing through the 1990s and 2000s until 2004, when he died from complications sustained in a car crash eight months earlier in Forest Hills, New York.