Guitarist Pete Cosey is Gone

Chicago guitarist Pete Cosey passed away earlier this week at age 68. Another original and under-recognized voice stilled.

Pete was a member of the AACM in the 1960's and played with Miles Davis' wild pre-retirement electric funk band in the mid-70's (Agharta, Pangaea, Get Up With It). I was fortunate enough to see him play with Miles a couple of times at the Jazz Workshop in Boston when I was a college student and was blown away. Pete sounded like nobody else, one of those musicians who was able to achieve a truly personal and unique sound. I've remembered and admired his playing ever since; although I am not a big guitar fan, his music was always worth seeking out. Pete apparently never recorded an album under his own name, although he came directly from Muddy Waters, the AACM, and Miles.

I found his obit on the blog Music Hertz, and there is an obit in the Chicago Reader that includes links to two interviews. RIP, Pete Cosey, thanks for the joy in your music.

My Musical Biography, Part 2

Fast forward to college. Growing up in Terre Haute I didn’t hear any jazz (though I later discovered that Duke played one of his last road gigs at Mr. Boos on Third Street). 16 years old at Harvard where my classmates included Yo Yo Ma, who was already a recording artist, and Jerry Harris, who went on to play bass with Sonny Rollins. I liked music so I went down to WHRB in the ancient Memorial Hall basement and joined up. I didn’t know enough about music to get any on-air work at first so I began by running the boards in the control room. I was good at it and found a lot of work there, and eventually got on the air.

My exposure to jazz began at the deep end, with Coltrane and Dolphy, and I pretty much immediately lost interest in rock and such (although I have retained some fondness for hillbilly music). The radio station had a huge record library and WHRB had the custom of suspending regular programming during reading and exam periods in favor of “orgies” dedicated to individual artists or styles. I did a 24-hour Monk orgy at one point and we put Monk on the cover of the program guide that month. Once while I was spinning a Bird disc late at night Roy Haynes actually called me on the phone to tell me he was the drummer on that record! What really ruined me was taking A.B. Spellman’s Black Music course, which started with Jelly Roll and ended with The Art Ensemble, with Pops, Duke, the Count, Bean, Pres, Bird, Miles, Trane, Mingus, Ornette, Dolphy, and Cecil Taylor in between. Ornette and Albert Ayler are the mainstream of the tradition. I used to set up the sound system for class; once I sat some equipment down on A.B.’s peanut butter crackers and his famous retort was “Get off my cracker, cracker”. ROFL.

After a year or so of listening to records, hanging out with hard core fanatics, and hearing live music at Boston’s Jazz Workshop, I was compelled to play again. I got a Bundy alto in Terre Haute over the summer. By the time I was a junior and living in Dunster House we would jam on weekends in the basement piano rooms. There was a cat named Phil Gardner who could already play like Bird and I was a talentless near beginner in comparison. Senior year I took an independent music course and studied saxophone with Hankus Netsky from New England Conservatory on a study-exchange program. Hankus is now famous for leading the Klezmer Conservatory Band and at one point was head of jazz studies at NEC. In my first lesson he made me transcribe Miles’ solo from So What. Jeez.