Stanley Cowell

Stanley Cowell ( born May 5, 1941 in Toledo ( Ohio)) is an American jazz musician ( piano, keyboards).

Cowell learned from the piano at the age where he was initially taught by his sisters. While studying at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, he played with Roland Kirk. In 1966 he moved to New York City. Between 1966 and 1967 he played with Marion Brown, from 1967 to 1979 with Max Roach, with Stan Getz and the quartet of Bobby Hutcherson and Harold Land. In the early 1970s he founded the quartet Music Inc., and together with Charles Tolliver record label, Strata - East and the musicians Organization Collective Black Artists Inc. Between 1974 and 1983 he played with the The Heath Brothers, Jimmy, " Tootie " and Percy Heath and picked up pieces of Jimmy Heath for solo piano. From 1981 to 1999 he taught as an adjunct professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York music history, improvisation and composition. In 1988 and 1989 he taught jazz piano at the New England Conservatory in Boston. He is currently a professor at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Department of Music, Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He took sporadically more albums, among others Joe Chambers and Steve Coleman. In 1991, he wrote a piece in honor of Art Tatum, who had exerted an early influence on his music.

Stylistically, he moves to many aspects in hard bop, post-bop and free jazz. Although he is highly esteemed by fellow musicians and much engaged, he is the broad jazz audience quite unknown.