Bill Cole

William Shadrack Cole is an American jazz musician, ethnomusicologist, professor of music, professor of African-American studies, and author. As All About Jazz jazz journalist Dan McClenaghan put it, "Cole – a rare breed of jazz artist who has focused his efforts on uniting Eastern sounds with the American art form – is a musical seeker who has, over the better part of four decades [since 1974], mastered an array of non-traditional, non-Western [wind] instruments." Cole specializes in the Ghanaian atenteben, the Chinese suona, the Korean hojok and piri, the South Indian nagaswaram, the North Indian shehnai, the Tibetan trumpet, and the Australian didjeridu. Cole has a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University. Cole has written two books, one on Miles Davis and one on John Coltrane. Cole is the founder and leader of the Untempered Ensemble.

Academic career Cole was professor of music at Amherst College from 1972 to 1974 and at Dartmouth College from 1974 to 1990. Dartmouth awarded Cole tenure in 1979, full professorship in 1985, and an honorary degree in 1987. Cole, for three years, beginning 1981, was Chair of the Music Department. From 2005 to 2010, Cole was Professor of African American Studies at Syracuse University, where he served as Chair of the Department. Cole retired in 2010 as Professor Emeritus. Syracuse, in 2010, appointed Renate Simson, PhD (1934–2017), to succeed Cole. She was a scholar and teacher of 19th century African-American literature, as Chair of the Department.

Jazz multi-instrumentalist and ethnomusicologist Nathan Davis, PhD, was Cole's academic advisor when he was working on his master's degree at the University of Pittsburgh. Davis was Cole's first African-American teacher in all his formal education, stretching back to kindergarten. Clifford Thornton, PhD, was Cole's academic advisor when he was working on his doctorate at Wesleyan University. Cole also studied with Sam Rivers, visiting artist at Wesleyan.

Musical collaborations Cole has performed with Ornette Coleman, Jayne Cortez, Julius Hemphill, Sam Rivers, James Blood Ulmer, and Fred Ho.

Books

Miles Davis: The Early Years (1974) John Coltrane (1976).In his book about Coltrane, Cole states, "Wherein, then, lies the magic of this man's music? The answer, from my point of view, is that it dealt with human problems in human terms for human beings in a human world. If there is 'turmoil' in his music, it includes the turmoil in the hearts and minds of ordinary men and women. It includes the turmoil and violence of the times through which Trane lived. But the magic in Trane's music also must derive from the 'peace which passeth all understanding' that was in this man's heart." Later in the book, Cole reflects on the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church Birmingham that killed four African-American girls. He points out that the melodic line of "Alabama," composed and first recorded as a memorial to the tragedy by Coltrane November 18, 1963 – days after the event – "was developed from the rhythmic inflections of a speech given by Dr. Martin Luther King."Jazz critic John Wilson, in his review of Cole's book on Coltrane, stated, "Cole has done a painstaking job of analyzing the recordings, looking at them almost phrase by phrase (with the help of Andrew White's transcriptions)."

Discography Solo and with selected artists