BIRTHDAY WISHES: Jimmy Cobb was born today in 1929 in Washington, D.C. Jimmy Cobb is a jazz drummer, best known for his drumming on Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” and has worked with the likes of Cannonball Adderley, Pearl Bailey, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Gil Evans, Red Garland, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Henderson, Billie Holiday, Wes Montgomery, Clark Terry, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Nancy Wilson and numerous others. A superb, mostly self-taught musician, Jimmy is the elder statesman of all the incredible Miles Davis bands. Jimmy’s inspirational work with Miles, John Coltrane, and Cannonball Adderly spanned 1957 until 1963, and included the masterpiece “Kind of Blue, one of the most popular jazz recordings in history. The album’s influence on music, including jazz, rock, and classical music, has led music writers to acknowledge it as one of the most influential albums ever made. In 2002, it was one of fifty recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry. In 2003, the album was ranked number 12 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “500 Greatest Albums Of All Time.” Jimmy also played on “Sketches of Spain”, “Someday My Prince will Come”, “Live at Carnegie Hall, “Live at the Blackhawk”, “Porgy and Bess”, and many other watershed Miles Davis recordings. Jimmy did his first recording with Earl Bostic and played extensively with Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday, Pearl Bailey, Clark Terry, Dizzy Gillespie, and Cannonball Adderly, before joining Miles in 1957. By 1963, Tony Williams took over the Miles drum chair and Jimmy left Miles to continue to work with Miles’ rhythm section, Winton Kelly and Paul Chambers behind Wes Montgomery. In addition to recording several Winton Kelly Trio albums, the three did records with Kenny Burrell and J.J. Johnson, among others, before disbanding in the late 60s. Jimmy then worked with Sarah Vaughn for 9 years. Afterward, Jimmy continued to freelance with a variety of artists throughout the 70s, 80s, and 90s including, Sonny Stitt, Nat Adderly, Ricky Ford, Hank Jones, Ron Carter, George Coleman, Fathead Newman, The Great Jazz Trio with Nancy Wilson, Dave Holland, Warren Bernhardt, and many others worldwide. In the early 90s, a television special produced by Eleana Tee featured Jimmy playing and hanging with Freddie Hubbard, Gregory Hines, Bill Cosby, Dave Leibman, and Pee Wee Ellis. Jimmy has played around the world from Newport to Monte Carlo and from L.A. to Japan. He has performed for both Presidents Ford, and Carter, the Shah of Iran and many other dignitaries, and is quoted extensively in “Kind of Blue, the documentary of those legendary recording sessions, and wrote the forward for the book of the same name. In 2002, Jimmy completed a “Four Generations of Miles” album with Mike Stern (guitar), Ron Carter (bass), and George Coleman (tenor). Other releases include his solo album, “Yesterdays. It features Michael Brecker on tenor, Marion Meadows on soprano, Roy Hargrove on trumpet and flugelhorn, Jon Faddis on trumpet, Eric Lewis on electric piano, Peter Bernstein on guitar, and John Weber on bass. This album was done in Jimmy’s two adopted home towns; recorded in New York City, and mixed and edited in Woodstock. It includes a wide variety of arrangements ranging from a unique interpretation of the Jimi Hendrix tune, “Purple Haze”, to ballads “Yesterdays” and blues (All Blues, Faddis, Monk) and standards, “Without a Song” and “Love Walked Right In. Jimmy remains active, not only in New York City, where he leads Jimmy Cobb’s Mob and Jimmy Cobb’s Reminiscence Band, but on the international circuit including Japan, China, The Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy, and South Africa. Jimmy is constantly being approached to teach what he knows and loves to aspiring jazz musicians all over the world. As an educator, Jimmy travels every year for the last 9 years to Stanford University to teach master classes for the Universities Jazz Workshop. He has taught for Parsons: The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City, Brooklyn-Queens Conservatory of Music, Florida State University, The University of Greensboro in North Carolina, the International Center for the arts at San Francisco and numerous educational institutions throughout the globe. As of 2011, Jimmy leads his own group, the Jimmy Cobb ‘So What’ Band, a tribute to 50 years of “Kind of Blue” and the music of Miles Davis.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 19:05:25 +0000
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