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Pete Cosey

Pete Cosey is a guitarist most famous for playing with Miles Davis' band between 1973 and 1975. His fiercely flanged and distorted guitar bore comparisons to Jimi Hendrix. Cosey has kept a low profile for much of his career (he has released no solo recorded works), though he remains an active player. Prior to joining the Miles Davis band in 1973, Cosey was a busy session guitarist with Chess Records, playing on records by Etta James, Rotary Connection, Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters (Electric Mud). Cosey was also an early member of Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). He was an early member of The Pharoahs and a group with drummer Maurice White and bassist Louis Satterfield that eventually evolved into Earth, Wind & Fire. Some of his pre-Miles jazz playing is available on an album by Phil Cohran's Artistic Heritage Ensemble. After joining Miles, Cosey performed on the albums Get Up with It, Dark Magus, Agharta and Pangaea. By 1975, Cosey had developed a remarkably advanced guitar approach--involving numerous alternate tunings, guitars restrung in unusual patterns and a post-Hendrix palette of distortion, wah-wah and guitar synth effects--that has influenced many adventurous guitarists, including Henry Kaiser and Vernon Reid. Following the 1975 break-up of the Miles Davis Band, Cosey largely disappeared from public view. He played on the title track of Herbie Hancock's Future Shock album, but did not appear on record again until Akira Sakata's album Fisherman's.com (with Sakata, Bill Laswell and Hamid Drake) in 2000. Throughout the '80s, he was involved in a number of Chicago- and New York-based groups with various musicians, but no recordings have been released. In 1987, he replaced Bill Frisell in the trio Power Tools with bassist Melvin Gibbs and drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson. In 2001, he started a group called The Children of Agharta to explore the electric Miles Davis repertoire. The first line-up was Cosey, Gary Bartz, John Stubblefield, Matt Rubano, J. T. Lewis, and DJ Johnny "Juice" Rosado (studio DJ for Public Enemy). The group's booking agency was recently listing the band as a quartet of Cosey, Bartz, Melvin Gibbs and Doni Hagen. In 2003, Cosey appeared on an episode of American television's The People's Court, successfully suing a promoter for failing to pay fully for a Children of Agharta gig. Cosey has also been a featured soloist with the group Burnt Sugar on their album The Rites.

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Profile

Pete Cosey

Read "Pete Cosey" reviewed by Martin Longley


The aging process has not compromised Pete Cosey's approach to the guitar. This veteran of the mid-1970s Miles Davis band has resurfaced again on a new two-disc project created by saxophonist, arranger, producer and conceptualist Bob Belden. The Miles From India mission is to re-invent that brooding advocate of synthesis' compositions as a meeting between jazz and Indian classical music. During the period when Cosey was with Miles, the trumpeter was no stranger to exotic global music, and was particularly ...

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Live Review

Pete Cosey's Children of Agharta Play the Lower East Side

Read "Pete Cosey's Children of Agharta Play the Lower East Side" reviewed by James Nichols


Pete Cosey's Children of AghartaCave CanemNew York, NYJune 21, 2007Pete Cosey's Children Of Agharta channels the fusion music of the great Miles Davis band of the early to mid-1970s. They go down many of the same roads blazed by the Davis group of that era when, in fact, Cosey filled the lead guitar chair. Yet simply comparing Cosey's band to the Dark Magus band does not give Children of Agharta its due credit-even if Miles ...

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Recording

Akira Sakata, Pete Cosey, Hamid Drake, Bill Laswell - Two Releases Out On M.O.D. Technologies As Part Of Incunabula Digital Series

Akira Sakata, Pete Cosey, Hamid Drake, Bill Laswell - Two Releases Out On M.O.D. Technologies As Part Of Incunabula Digital Series

Source: hubtone PR

Akira Sakata with Bill Laswell, Pete Cosey, Hamid Drake KAIGARABUSHI - BILL LASWELL REMIX Japanese free jazz icon Akira Sakata in collaboration with the legendary guitarist Pete Cosey (Miles Davis, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf), drummer Hamid Drake and bassist Bill Laswell. A remix of a track from the album fisherman's.com released in 2001, it offers traditional Japanese folk art meets funk and free improvisation. Mix- construction by Bill Laswell. TRACK: 1. Kaigarabushi Return (11:44) BILL LASWELL'S BILMAWN - LITTLE VILLAGE ...

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Obituary

Pete Cosey, 1943-2012

Pete Cosey, 1943-2012

Source: Michael Ricci

Innovative guitarist 'knew what to do with just one note' Jazz guitarist Pete Cosey used electronic distortion and innovative methods of stringing and tuning his guitar to impress his signature sound on recordings by artists from bluesmen Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf to jazz great Miles Davis. “Pete's sound was something quite amazing," said Wendy Oxenhorn, executive director of the New York-based Jazz Foundation of America. “He took blues, funk, rap and jazz and combined it into a new sound." ...

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Recording

Melvin Gibbs' Phree-dem Downloads Week 2 features Pete Cosey and John Medeski

Melvin Gibbs' Phree-dem Downloads Week 2 features Pete Cosey and John Medeski

Source: Melvin Gibbs

The Phree-dem Downloads free music series continues into its' second week with the composition “Pete's Mojo." Bassist/producer Melvin Gibbs features Miles Davis (Get Up With It, Dark Magus, Agartha) alumni Pete Cosey on guitar and John Medeski on organ and electric piano on this track from his “Melvin Runs The Hoodoo Down" project This project, which takes the music of the Miles Davis' album Bitches Brew as it's starting point, is based on a production technique Melvin calls “infrapolation." “Pete's ...

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Performance / Tour

Summer Solstice Sounds with Miles Davis' Legendary Guitarist Pete Cosey Children of Agharta

Summer Solstice Sounds with Miles Davis' Legendary Guitarist Pete Cosey Children of Agharta

Source: All About Jazz

LiveWired Presents: Pete Cosey - Guitars, Zithers, Mbiras Melvin Gibbs - Bass J.T. Lewis - Drums Johnny 'Juice' Rosado - Turntables, Percussion Performing in New York City's East Village Also DJ Sakedelic + Lovolution THURSDAY, JUNE 21st, 2007, 9PM CAVE CANEM - 24 First Avenue between 1st & 2nd Streets (near F train 2nd Ave. station) - 212.995.5500 - entrance below red lanterns at Lucky Cheng's LiveWired Ticketing & Further Info - ...

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Performance / Tour

Updated Delmark Announcement: Ari Brown at Green Mill is On, Pete Cosey is Off

Updated Delmark Announcement: Ari Brown at Green Mill is On, Pete Cosey is Off

Source: All About Jazz

ARI BROWN Quartet- Live at the Green Mill in Chicago for upcoming Delmark Records DVD/CD - Friday, June 22nd and Saturday, June 23rd, 2007 - Pete Cosey will NOT be performing. I regret to inform you that special guest, electric guitarist Pete Cosey, will NOT be the special guest with the Ari Brown Quartet at the Delmark DVD/CD Green Mill recording as previously announced. I apologize for this unfortunate situation. Delmark Records next recording for future DVD/CD will be the ...

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Performance / Tour

Ari Brown Quartet with Special Guest Pete Cosey: Upcoming Delmark DVD/CD Recording

Ari Brown Quartet with Special Guest Pete Cosey: Upcoming Delmark DVD/CD Recording

Source: All About Jazz

Local unsung heroes of Chicago jazz and blues unite for a special Green Mill engagement for future Delmark DVD/CD! JUNE 22, 23, 2007 ARI BROWN Quartet with very special guest, PETE COSEY (June 23rd only) Live at the Green Mill, Friday, June 22nd and Saturday, June 23rd (Cosey only on 23rd) Some exciting news just confirmed, Delmark's next recording for future DVD/CD will be the Ari Brown Quartet - Kirk Brown (piano), Yosef Ben Israel (Bass), and Avreeyal Ra (drums). ...

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Music Industry

Melvin Gibbs with Pete Cosey/Joe Lovano/DJ Logic concert from 3-01 at Tagworld

Melvin Gibbs with Pete Cosey/Joe Lovano/DJ Logic concert from 3-01 at Tagworld

Source: All About Jazz

Now at Tagworld: a concert from 3-23-01 featuring a special edition of Melvin Gibbs' Liberation Theology band performing at Symphony Space in New York at the “Wall-to-Wall Miles" sessions.

Melvin Gibbs has been called “the greatest bassist in the world" by Time Out New York Magazine. This version of his band features Downbeat poll winner Joe Lavano on soprano sax and flute and the great Pete Cosey on sitar and kalimba. Pete is known for his ...

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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Agharta

Columbia Records
1990

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