Kenny Drew

Kenny Drew
Background information
Birth name	Kenneth Sidney Drew
Born	(1928-08-28)August 28, 1928 New York City, New York, US
Died	August 4, 1993(1993-08-04) (aged 64) Copenhagen, Denmark
Genres	Jazz, post-bop, hard bop, mainstream jazz
Instruments	Piano
Labels	Blue Note, Xanadu, SteepleChase, Riverside, Verve, Soul Note, Storyville
Associated acts	Coleman Hawkins

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.^[1] 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.^[1] 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.^[1] 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.^[1] 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."^[2]

Drew and Dexter Gordon appeared on screen in Ole Ege's theatrically released hardcore pornographic film Pornografi – en musical (1971), for which they composed and performed the score.^[3]

Drew died in 1993 and was interred in the Assistens Cemetery in Nørrebro, Copenhagen. He has a street named after him in southern Copenhagen, "Kenny Drews Vej" (Eng., Kenny Drew Street).

His son, Kenny Drew Jr., was also a jazz pianist.

Playing style

His touch was described in The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz as "precise", and his playing as being a combination of bebop-influenced melodic improvisation and block chords, including "refreshingly subtle harmonizations".^[1]

Discography

References

External links

• AllMusic
• Discography
• Kenny Drew at Find a Grave