Michael Cochrane (musician)

Michael Cochrane ( born September 4, 1948 in Peekskill, Westchester County, New York) is an American jazz pianist, arranger, composer and author.

Michael Cochrane grew up near New York in a small town. At the age of eight he had piano lessons; in high school band, he gained his first experience with jazz and big band music. He then studied at the Boston University Mathematics. and worked beside with in a music program at Berkeley. Cochrane finally changed the subject and graduated in psychology. After graduation, he had first appearances in and around Boston, before he moved to New York City. There began a long collaboration with trumpeter Hannibal Marvin Peterson, with whom he went in the next seven years on tour and was involved in the album One With the Wind for Muse Records. In the early 1980s he played in the band of Jack Walrath. also with Sonny Fortune, Eddie Gomez, Valery Ponomarev, Clark Terry, Michael Brecker, Chico Freeman, Ted Curson, Oliver Lake. In 1985 he earned a Master of Arts at New York University. From the mid- 1980s he took under his own name on a number of albums for Soul Note label daie and Steeple Case, in which participated, among others, Tom Harrell, Bob Malach, Dennis Irwin, Ron McClure and Jeff Hirshfield.

Cochrane wrote several books on solo piano and jazz arrangements and taught at Rutgers University, Princeton University and New York University.

Disco Graphical Notes

• Element ( Soul Note, 1985)
• Song of Change ( Soul Note, 1992)
• Cutting Edge ( Steeplechase, 1997)
• Footprints ( Steeplechase, 1998)
• Quartet Music ( Steeplechase, 2001)