Cozy Cole
b. 17 October 1909, East Orange, New Jersey, USA, d. 29 January 1981. Cole took up drumming as a child and by his early teens was studying and developing his craft. His first professional engagement was with clarinet virtuoso Wilbur Sweatman who led bands in several New York clubs and theatres. By the end of the '20s Cole had already briefly led his own band and in 1930 he recorded with Jelly Roll Morton. During the early '30s he worked successively with Blanche Calloway, Benny Carter and Willie Bryant and then, in 1936, joined the Onyx Club band co-led by Stuff Smith and Jonah Jones. In 1938 he began a four-year tenure with Cab Calloway during which he was given solo space in shows and on record. He also made many records with the small groups led by Lionel Hampton for his classic RCA sessions. Following his departure from Calloway, Cole returned to his studies, this time at Juilliard, and did theatrical work which included a featured spot in CARMEN JONES. He led his own groups in the mid-40s and all-star ‘pick-up’ bands for record dates which are today usually issued under the names of one or another of his more illustrious sidemen, Coleman Hawkins and Earl Hines. In the late '40s he led various small groups and then joined Louis Armstrong's All Stars where he remained for a little over three years. During this period he was extensively featured on the soundtrack of a film, THE STRIP (1951), which starred Mickey Rooney as a drummer with Armstrong's band. In the early and mid-50s Cole was active in New York where he ran a drum school in partnership with Gene Krupa. He appeared in a number of films including THE GLENN MILLER STORY (1953) in which he duetted with Krupa. In the late '50s he became a member of the all-star band co-led by Jack Teagarden and Earl Fatha Hines which toured Europe and in 1958 had a surprising double-sided US hit single with Topsy I/’Topsy II’—Turvy reached the Top 40 later that same year. In 1961 he appeared in an excellent television pilot, AFTER HOURS, with Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge, the soundtrack of which was later bootlegged on an obscure Dutch label. Throughout the '60s and '70s Cole worked in a variety of settings, notably in a group which reunited him with Jonah Jones, touring internationally and appearing at numerous festivals. A brilliant technician with a meticulous sense of time, Cole could sometimes sound a little stiff. He dramatically altered the sound of the Armstrong All Stars to that which his more loosely swinging predecessor, Big Sid Catlett, had created but he could be relied upon to push front-line soloists along with an urgency they rarely received from other, more famous drummers. Cole died of cancer in January 1981.