TOLEDO, Ohio -
He has performed at Carnegie Hall, and he's one of the greatest living jazz artists of our time. His story is just one of the many featured at the African American Legacy Project of Northwest Ohio.
Stanley Cowell is a classically trained pianist and composer and one of the greatest living exponents of jazz.
"Mr. Stanley Cowell is one of two legendary musicians that hail from Toledo," says Robert Smith with the AALP. "The first is Art Tatum, and the second is Stanley Cowell, who both grew up on Woodland Avenue, two and half blocks from each other."
Cowell began playing and performing at the age of 3.
"Stanley got an opportunity to hear Mr. Art Tatum play at the age of five or six in the Cowell home," Smith says.
By the age of 15, Cowell was a featured soloist with the Toledo Youth Orchestra, a choir organist and director and budding jazz pianist.
After completing his masters degree at Michigan in 1966, Cowell headed to New York City where he worked for such musical artists as Max Roach and Miles Davis. In 1971, Cowell started his own record company called Strata-East Records.
Smith says, "Mr. Cowell is extraordinary, gifted, talented. For those who know his music, his hands are so light, he moves with such artistry. I watched with amazement whenever I get the opportunity."
Cowell does still visit Toledo from time to time. He was known for surprising his first piano teacher, Mary Belle Shealy.
Cowell never forgot his roots or the shoulders he now stands on.
Smith says Cowell played a special performance for the African American Legacy Project. "He came home on Art Tatum's 100 anniversary and performed a tribute for Tatum, which was a major fundraiser for us."
Stanley teaches in the music department of the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
The African American Legacy Project is located on Upton Avenue. If you'd like donate, visit africanamericanlegacy.org/.
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