Jazz breaking news: Child of Agharta spiritual guitarist Pete Cosey dies at 68

Cosey shook things up with Miles on the much misunderstood highly combustible and influential 1976 released double album Agharta recorded in the Japanese city of Osaka the year before, an album that purist critics just did not get at that time along with the equally fine companion album Pangaea. He’s also on Get Up With It and Dark Magus.

Born on 9 October 1943 the son of a musician father who played with Sidney Bechet, Cosey as a child learned violin, accordion and piano and sang in the choir. Before working with Miles in the 1970s Cosey played with Muddy Waters for Chess Records and also appears on albums by Howlin’ Wolf and Etta James. While still at the blues label he appeared on many sessions and liked to play the electric choral sitar tuned like a guitar but with a bridge and drone strings like a sitar, which he used on Four Tops tracks. His early career also included a stint in the Pharoahs, which later became Earth, Wind and Fire.

Initially influenced by Wes Montgomery and Chuck Berry, Cosey was mentored by guitarist/bassist Reggie Boyd, but he moved way beyond even the jazz-rock innovations that came in the wake of Hendrix. After playing with Miles Cosey performed with Herbie Hancock on Future Shock and even appeared with the likes of drums innovator Ronald Shannon Jackson, always a fine appreciator of guitar artistry (think James Blood Ulmer and Jef Lee Johnson).

In more recent years Cosey was a key part of Children of Agharta, which included Gary Bartz, the late John Stubblefield and others, and he also performed with bass guitarist/producer Bill Laswell who did so much to provide much needed light and shade on Miles’ Agharta period on Panthalassa.

Jazzwise’s George Cole spoke to Cosey about his time with Miles and he explained humbly to George: “I had never in my life considered for one second that I would play with Miles Davis. I had always wanted to play with John Coltrane and the Modern Jazz Quartet. I had no idea the level Miles was on spiritually or intelligently. I had no idea what a great man and a great teacher he was. I took it for granted he was the essence of cool and hip.”

Cosey will be remembered for his incendiary style, spiritual approach to music and a universal consciousness, and of course the sheer excitement of his unforgettable playing with Miles.

– Stephen Graham