Mr. Cowell, who had houses in Higher Marlboro, Md., and Camden, Del., expanded the vocabulary of jazz with an tactic that was concurrently cerebral and earthy. He had far more than 30 recordings as a chief and appeared on recordings and in performance with countless key jazz figures.
In the 1960s, when he arrived to prominence, he labored with trumpeter Miles Davis and saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk and was a member of an influential team led by drummer Max Roach. A prolific composer as effectively as a pianist, Mr. Cowell wrote many tunes for Roach’s 1968 album, “Members, Really don’t Git Weary,” like “Equipoise” and “Effi,” that have been extensively done by other individuals.
Mr. Cowell had a single foot firmly in the jazz custom and a different in the avant-garde. He generally done criteria and jazz classics, but in new and sudden methods. In a person situation, he slowed down the headlong gallop of Charlie Parker’s bebop basic “Anthropology” and reimagined it as a ballad.
Reserved and dignified in his fashion, Mr. Cowell could engage in the piano with a mix of exuberance and introspection. He jumped from James P. Johnson’s “Carolina Shout” from the 1920s to ruminative, harmonically dense original functions drawn in equal areas from classical audio and experimental jazz.
“Always unfolding substantially,” Mr. Cowell’s new music “is never ever pretentious, by no means stricken with arcane, elitist self-indulgence posing as cosmic importance to be comprehended by only a picked out number of,” Hartford Courant jazz critic Owen McNally wrote in 2013.
Mr. Cowell’s 1st album, produced in 1969, was titled “Blues for the Viet Cong,” and his audio frequently suggested social strategies or components of Black background and pride. His 2015 album, “Juneteenth,” was a suite of authentic compositions for solo piano influenced by the African American battle for empowerment and freedom.
During the 1970s, Mr. Cowell helped found Collective Black Artists Inc., an work to give jazz musicians better handle in excess of their compositions, recordings and effectiveness venues. With trumpeter Charles Tolliver, a longtime musical collaborator, he introduced Strata-East, an unbiased, artist-owned report label. Mr. Cowell made solo recordings for the label and collaborated on other albums with Tolliver and saxophonist Clifford Jordan. A 1975 recording, “Regeneration,” blended Western and African instruments in imaginative ways.
At the very same time, Mr. Cowell was discovering other musical ideas, including the “Piano Choir,” a grouping of up to 9 pianists and other musicians on a one stage, creating spectacular sonic effects. He produced the plan just after studying that James Reese Europe, an African American orchestra leader of the early 20th century, the moment experienced a concert for 14 pianos.
“I considered it was a probability that hadn’t been exploited in fashionable jazz,” Mr. Cowell advised The Washington Post in 2000.
He labored with a broad array of musicians, like saxophonists Sonny Rollins, Gary Bartz and Stan Getz, vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson and drummer Roy Haynes. For a number of yrs, he was the pianist with the Heath Brothers band, showcasing saxophonist Jimmy Heath, and created a selection of recordings with them. He experimented with digital instruments, such as pcs that altered the piano’s pitch and percussive depth.
In 1981, Mr. Cowell started a long instructing occupation, very first at the Metropolis University of New York’s Lehman College and, commencing in 2000, at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., where he was director of the jazz application.
From 1989 to 1999, Mr. Cowell introduced 13 jazz albums, and he ongoing to publish music, which include a piano concerto, orchestral works, chamber songs and compositions for solo piano.
But his appearances at standard jazz venues steadily turned additional rare, earning his occasional performances with other associates of the Rutgers jazz school, these as drummer Victor Lewis, saxophonist Ralph Bowen and guitarist Vic Juris, must-see activities for jazz supporters.
“I do acquire gigs from time to time, while I variety of dropped out of the club scene,” he informed the Newark Star-Ledger in 2006. “I’d somewhat perform a live performance, arrive at possibly 1,000 individuals, which is a lot more men and women than you’ll see at a small club in a 7 days.”
Stanley Allen Cowell was born Could 5, 1941, in Toledo. He mom and dad owned a cafe and a resort that was a regular gathering place for viewing Black musicians.
Mr. Cowell showed early guarantee on the piano, and at age 6, he fulfilled Toledo indigenous Artwork Tatum, frequently regarded as the biggest piano virtuoso in jazz heritage. Mr. Cowell marveled at Tatum’s capacity and was influenced to pursue audio skillfully.
Whilst top jazz combos on the facet, his experiments targeted on classical new music. Following graduating from the music conservatory at Ohio’s Oberlin School in 1962, he analyzed at several other faculties, together with Austria’s Mozarteum College Salzburg. In 1966, he received a master’s diploma in classical piano functionality from the University of Michigan, then moved to New York to pursue his fascination in jazz.
His relationship to Victoria McLaughlin ended in divorce. Survivors contain his wife of 32 years, the previous Sylvia Potts, of Higher Marlboro their daughter, Sunny Cowell, a musician and lawyer, of Baltimore a daughter from his initial marriage, Sienna Cowell of Chesapeake, Va. and a sister.
After retiring from Rutgers in 2013, Mr. Cowell began to elevate his profile as a performer, together with a celebrated 7 days-lengthy engagement at New York’s Village Vanguard in 2015. In October 2019, Mr. Cowell appeared for a number of days at Baltimore’s Keystone Korner jazz club with a quintet — and his daughter Sunny on vocals. The ensuing stay album was introduced very last month.