Music
Kenny Cox
1940–2008 · jazz pianist, bandleader, label founder
Detroit pianist whose Contemporary Jazz Quintet recorded two Blue Note albums in 1968–1969 and who founded the city's Strata label and later the Guerilla Jam Band.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Detroit, Michigan
aged 68- Detroit years
- 1940s–2008
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Cox spent the 1960s as pianist for singer Etta Jones and in a quintet led by Detroit trombonist George Bohanon, while sharing bandstands with visitors such as Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Jackie McLean, Wes Montgomery and Philly Joe Jones. By the end of the decade he led his own Kenny Cox and the Contemporary Jazz Quintet with trumpeter Charles Moore and saxophonist Leon Henderson, one of the few Detroit bands of its generation signed by Blue Note, which released Introducing Kenny Cox (1968) and Multidirection (1969). Frustrated with the national record business, he set up Strata Records to document Detroit players on their own terms; it issued his albums Location (1973) and Clap Clap! The Joyful Noise (1975) and was part of the same self-help movement as Tribe. In the 1980s he formed the Guerilla Jam Band, a training ground for Regina Carter, James Carter and Craig Taborn. He died of lung cancer at his Detroit home in 2008.
Highlights
- Blue Note albums Introducing Kenny Cox (1968) and Multidirection (1969)
- Founded Detroit's Strata Records
- Formed the Guerilla Jam Band with Regina Carter, James Carter and Craig Taborn
- Pianist on James Carter's Live at Baker's Keyboard Lounge (2001)
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Recorded here · 2001
Baker's Keyboard Lounge
Detroit's oldest jazz club, where Cox played on James Carter's live album recorded in 2001.