Stanley Cowell, born May 5, 1941 and died December 17, 2020. He was an American jazz pianist who co-founded the Strata-East Records record label. Cowell was born in Toledo Ohio. At the age four, he began playing piano and was inspired to learn jazz when he saw Art Tatum at six. Tatum was a close family friend. Cowell attended Oberlin College and the University of Michigan after high school. During his time at college he played with jazz multi-instrumentalist Roland Kirk, which proved to be formative for the pianist. In the mid-1960s, he moved to New York. Cowell was a member of the Marion Brown, Max Roach and Bobby Hutcherson jazz bands. He also played with Clifford Jordan. Cowell was a member of the Detroit Artist’s Workshop Jazz Ensemble from 1965 to 1966. Cowell was a member of a regular quartet that J.J. Johnson led in the late 1980s. Cowell was a teacher in the Rutgers University Music Department at the Mason Gross School of the Arts in New Jersey. Cowell, who was suffering from hypovolemic shock, died on December 17, 2020 at Bayhealth Hospital, Dover, Delaware. He was 79 years of age. From Wikipedia
