's drumming was an essential ingredient in much of the jazz recorded during the 1930s and '40s, and he belongs in the same pantheon with
.
was born in East Orange, NJ, on October 17, 1909. He moved to New York City with his family in 1926 and soon became fascinated with the work of
. By 1928 he was performing with clarinetist and bandleader
, and his first recordings (including the feature number "Load of Cole") were made with
in 1930.
After working for several years with
Blanche Calloway & Her Joy Boys and
the Benny Carter Orchestra,
Cole accelerated his involvement in the swarming swing scene, making records with bands led by
Willie Bryant and pianist
Teddy Wilson and backing vocalists
Billie Holiday,
Midge Williams,
Mildred Bailey, and Vocalion's assigned
Fats Waller emulator,
Putney Dandridge.
Cozy Cole assisted with
Henry "Red" Allen's original recording of "Algiers Stomp," and made records with
Bunny Berigan,
Bud Freeman's Windy City Five,
Chu Berry's Stompy Stevedores,
Stuff Smith's Onyx Club Orchestra,
Frankie Newton's Uptown Serenaders, and
Lionel Hampton. During the year 1939 he worked with
Pete Brown & His Jump Band,
Joe Marsala & His Delta Six,
Leonard Feather's All-Stars, and one-armed trumpeter
Wingy Manone.
In 1940,
Cozy Cole took his decade of experience and descended upon
the Cab Calloway Orchestra during that brief period when the extroverted leader, reluctant to surrender the spotlight, begrudgingly assigned instrumental features to his star players.
Cole was the main focus of "Ratamacue," "Paradiddle," and "Crescendo in Drums." In 1943 he worked with bandleader
Raymond Scott and performed "Beat Out Dat Rhythm on a Drum" in the Broadway production of
Oscar Hammerstein II's Carmen Jones. The year 1944 was a triumphant one for
Cole, as he led several all-star groups for the Keynote and Savoy labels and served with bands led by trumpeter
Roy Eldridge, saxophonist
Coleman Hawkins, bassist
Billy Taylor, and cornetist
Rex Stewart. He also sat in with pianist
Johnny Guarnieri and saxophonist
Lester Young, clarinetist
Hank D'Amico, tenor man
Walter "Foots" Thomas, and several groups working for the Armed Forces V-Disc project.
Cozy Cole helped hasten the alchemical transmutation of swing into bop by recording as a leader for the Keynote, Continental, and Guild labels, and by sidelining with
Don Redman and
Don Byas, and with
Charlie Parker and
Dizzy Gillespie on their highly acclaimed "All the Things You Are" session of February 29, 1945. During this period, inspired perhaps by the stylistic revolution in which he had begun to take part,
Cozy Cole took himself to the Juilliard School of Music and perfected his already seasoned approach to the drum kit. In 1946 and 1947
Cole recorded with
Benny Goodman,
Ella Fitzgerald, and
Louis Armstrong, finally settling in with
Armstrong's All-Stars from 1949 to 1953 and opening a school for drummers with
Gene Krupa in March 1954 that would continue to educate aspiring percussionists until
Krupa's death in 1973.
After touring Europe with
Jack Teagarden and
Earl Hines in 1957,
Cozy Cole's career suddenly took off like a bottle rocket as a 1958 drum-driven big-band remake of the
Edgar Battle/
Eddie Durham/
Count Basie tune "Topsy" (b/w "Turvy") hit the pop and R&B charts, publicly aligning him with flashy "Teen Beat" rock & roll drummer
Sandy Nelson. Over the next seven years,
Cole recorded more music in this vein for the Love, Felsted, and Coral imprints, as well as a 1961 LP for the
Charlie Parker record label consisting of jazzy lounge interpretations of themes from
Georges Bizet's opera Carmen (echoing his stage triumph of 1943).
In 1969
Cole began gigging with his old session mate
Jonah Jones and worked with the trumpeter's group intermittently for several years. Late maturity found him jamming at a jazz festival in Nice, France, in 1974 and participating in a
Louis Armstrong alumni project under the leadership of
Lionel Hampton in 1977.
Cozy Cole received an honorary degree from Capital University in Columbus, OH, in 1978, and lectured there periodically for the rest of his life. He passed away in Columbus on January 31, 1981.
–
arwulf arwulf, Rovi