Kenny Drew

Kenneth Sidney "Kenny" Drew (August 28, 1928 – August 4, 1993) was an American jazz pianist.

Biography

Drew was born in New York City in 1928 and received piano lessons from the age of five. He attended The High School of Music & Art in Manhattan. Drew's first recording, in 1950, was with Howard McGhee, and over the next two years he worked in bands led by Buddy DeFranco, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, and Charlie Parker, among others. After a brief period with his own trio in California, Drew returned to New York, playing with Dinah Washington, Johnny Griffin, Buddy Rich, and several others over the following few years. He led many recording sessions throughout the '50s, and in 1957 appeared on John Coltrane's album Blue Train.

Drew was one of several American jazz musicians who settled in Europe around this period: he moved to Paris in 1961 and to Copenhagen three years later. While he sacrificed much of the interest of the American jazz audience, he gained a wide following across Europe. Kenny Drew was a well-known figure on the Copenhagen jazz scene, recording many sessions with the Danish bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen. "Living in Copenhagen, and travelling out from there," Drew remarked, "I have probably worked in more different contexts than if I had stayed in New York where I might have got musically locked in with a set-group of musicians. This way, I have been able to keep my musical antennas in shape, while at the same time I have had more time to study and also get deeper into my own endeavors."

Drew

Drew is the past tense of draw, and both a surname and a given unisex name, sometimes as a shortened form of Andrew. It may refer to:

Places

United States

Other uses

See also

Kenny

Kenny is a surname, a given name, and a diminutive of several different given names.

In Ireland, the surname is an Anglicisation of the Irish Ó Cionnaith, sometimes spelled Ó Cionnaoith. It is also a name from Waterford Cork which derives from MacKenny.

One bearer of the name was Cainnech of Aghaboe, better known in English as Saint Canice - a sixth-century Irish priest and missionary, after whom the city and county of Kilkenny is also named. The Irish form Cill Chainnigh means "church of Canice".

It is thought that the Ó Cionnaith sept was part of the Uí Maine kingdom, based in Connaught. Within this area, the name is associated traditionally with counties Galway and Roscommon.

Kenny is ranked at number 76 in the list of the most common surnames in Ireland. Other spellings include O'Kenny, Kenney, Kennie, Kinnie and Kinny.

Kenny is most often used as a diminutive form of Kenneth and Ken but it is also used as a given name.

People named Kenny

Given name

Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Sphere Monk (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser" "Ruby, My Dear", "In Walked Bud", and "Well, You Needn't". Monk is the second-most recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington, which is particularly remarkable as Ellington composed more than 1,000 pieces, whereas Monk wrote about 70.

His compositions and improvisations feature dissonances and angular melodic twists, and are consistent with Monk's unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations.

He was renowned for his distinctive style in suits, hats, and sunglasses. He was also noted for an idiosyncratic habit observed at times during performances: while the other musicians in the band continued playing, he would stop, stand up from the keyboard, and dance for a few moments before returning to the piano.

Kenny Drew Trio

Kenny Drew Trio is an album by pianist Kenny Drew recorded in 1956 and released on the Riverside label. The album features Drew's tribute to jazz patron Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter "Blues for Nica." This band would be the rhythm section the following year on sessions for John Coltrane that would yield his Blue Train album.

Reception

The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow states: "Although Drew would have to move to Europe in the early '60s in order to get the recognition he deserved, it is obvious (in hindsight) from this enjoyable date that he was already a major improviser".

Track listing

Side one

Side two

Personnel

References