The Stanley Cowell Quartet drew such a large audience to Crowell Concert Hall on Saturday night that even the complex’s 430 seats proved insufficient to house everyone. The audience spilled into the aisles for the quartet’s debut performance at the University.
Stanley Cowell, pianist, composer, and professor of music, heads the ensemble. The 62 year old artist, a featured soloist by the age of fifteen, has worked with such artists as Miles Davis, Max Roach and Stan Getz, and co-founded the Collective Black Artists, Inc., a non-profit organization that brings African-American music to the public. He has released more than twenty CDs, the most recent of which is “Dancers in Love” which deputed in 1999. A regular concert-player, he has put together and been a part of many ensembles. The other members of the quartet, saxophonist Ralph Bowen, bassist Mike Richmond, and drummer Victor Lewis, have worked individually with internationally acclaimed musicians and have garnered awards for their work as musicians and teachers. All four musicians currently instruct at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
The two-hour performance consisted of eight original pieces written by members of the quartet. The pieces ranged from Bowen’s slow, velvety “On Green” to Lewis’s lively “Hey It’s Me You’re Talking To.” Cowell, Richmond, and Lewis played “Equipose” a piano trio by Cowell, which he said is “one of my most recorded pieces.”
As with most jazz, each piece was lengthy, lasting well over five minutes. The musicians, dressed in casual attire, played seriously, focusing completely on their instruments. Cowell leaned close to the piano as his fingers danced along the keys. Richmond counted out the rhythms with a furrowed brow while Bowen and Lewis performed tirelessly, frequently playing fast-paced, elaborate solos.
“We’d like to conclude this evening’s set with a pro-active gesture,” Cowell said before the quartet began their final tune, entitled “Prayer for Peace.”
“It’s not one of those ethereal prayers,” he warned.
Indeed, the bouncy, energetic “Prayer for Peace” filled the air with a sense of optimism, hope and movement. At the end of the piece, the quartet received a standing ovation from everyone in the audience. They graciously bowed and exited.
According to Pamela Tatge, Director of the Center for the Arts, a concert committee of faculty members, CFA staff, graduate students and undergraduates decided upon bringing Cowell to Wesleyan.
“We’ve wanted to bring him here for a while,” she said, “[It was an] extraordinary opportunity [because] he is equally strong as a composer and [as an] educator.”
The evening was sponsored by the Center for the Arts, the Music Department, and the Center for African American Studies.
Before the evening performance, Cowell led a workshop for the Wesleyan Jazz Orchestra Saturday afternoon. According to orchestra member Chris Brown ’04, the orchestra played three pieces for Cowell, including his own “Brilliant Circles,” after which Cowell critiqued their performance.
Although the workshop was open to the public, few people attended other than the parents of the student musicians. Brown attributed it to lack of publicity. Nonetheless, Brown said he learned a lot from Cowell’s comments.
“He’s a really smart guy,” Brown said, adding that almost everyone from the orchestra went to see the concert.
Cowell expressed a positive attitude toward the afternoon’s workshop and the process in general.
“I felt very good about it,” he said, “A good teacher always finds room for improvement, and that’s what I did.”
He said he put particular emphasis on the “ensemble, instrumental approach and improvisation.”
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