Stanley Cowell (May 5, 1941 – December 17, 2020) was an American jazz pianist and co-founder of the Strata-East Records label.

Early life

Cowell was born in Toledo, Ohio. He began playing the piano around the age of four, and became interested in jazz after seeing Art Tatum at the age of six. Tatum was a family friend. After high school, Cowell studied classical piano with Emil Danenberg at Oberlin Conservatory of Music He included "Emil Danenberg" in his 1973 suite "Musa: Ancestral Dreams". During his time at Oberlin, he played with jazz multi-instrumentalist Roland Kirk, which proved to be formative. He went on to receive a graduate degree in classical piano from the University of Michigan. He moved to New York in the mid-1960s.

Later life and career

Cowell played with Marion Brown, Max Roach, Bobby Hutcherson, Clifford Jordan, Harold Land, Sonny Rollins and Stan Getz. Cowell played with trumpeter Charles Moore and others in the Detroit Artist's Workshop Jazz Ensemble in 1965–66. In 1971, Cowell co-founded the record label Strata-East with trumpeter Charles Tolliver. The label would become one of the most successful Black-led, independent labels of its day. During the late 1980s, Cowell was part of a regular quartet led by J.J. Johnson. Cowell taught in the Music Department of the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in New Jersey. On December 17, 2020, Cowell died at Bayhealth Hospital in Dover, Delaware, from hypovolemic shock. He was 79 years old.

Discography

As leader

As sideman

With Marion Brown With Larry Coryell With Richard Davis With Roy Haynes With Jimmy Heath With The Heath Brothers With Bobby Hutcherson With Art Pepper With Charles Tolliver With others