Kenny Cox

Kenneth " characteristic " Louis Cox II ( Kenny Cox, born November 8, 1940 in Detroit, † December 19, 2008 ) was an American jazz pianist (also bass, bassoon and trumpet), composer and university teacher.

Life and work

Kenny Cox first began to play the trumpet, attended from 1949 to 1958, the Detroit Conservatory of Music. 1956, during his studies at Cass Tech High School, he moved to the piano. After his graduation he studied 1959-1961 at Detroit Institute of Music Arts, to then move to New York City where he worked as a sideman for Etta Jones until 1966; in addition he worked with Wes Montgomery, Kenny Dorham, Jackie McLean, Philly Joe Jones, Joe Williams, Helen Humes and Ernestine Anderson.

After returning to Detroit, he formed a hard bop quintet, led by George Bohannon and for which he wrote compositions. Cox also produced a weekly radio program ( Kaleidophone ) for the station WDET. In 1967 he got the opportunity einzuspielen his compositions on two albums of the Blue Note label; in his Contemporary Jazz Quintet played Ron Brooks, Charles Moore, Leon Henderson and Danny Spencer. Cox continued his work with the CJQ until the 1970s, in which the ensemble was influenced by contemporary fusion currents. Cox was then co-founder of the musicians ' cooperative ( and eponymous label ) Strata, organized from 1970 to 1977 a series of albums, publications and performances, inter alia, by Herbie Hancock, Elvin Jones, Charles Mingus and Archie Shepp. In the 1980s he worked primarily in Detroit, including his guerrilla Jam Band, in which he took as a guest musician Regina Carter, James Carter, Tani Tabbal, Jabiru Shahid, Craig Taborn and Donald Walden and on different Montreux- Detroit Jazz festival concerts.

As a music educator, he founded the societie of the Culturally Concerned, was an adjunct professor at Wayne State University and Michigan State University. As a visiting professor he taught jazz Anthropology at Oberlin College. He published a book of his compositions, And Then I Wrote ... The Music World of characteristic Cox, wrote a jazz show and most recently worked with the band Eternal Wind with Charles Moore and Adam Rudolph together, also with Yusef Lateef. 2008 Cox received from the Southeastern Michigan Jazz Association the award for his life's work. He died at the age of 68 in late 2008 from lung cancer.

Disco Graphical Notes

• Introducing Kenny Cox ( Blue Note, 1968)
• Multi- Direction ( Blue Note, 1969)