Kenny Drew born 28 August 1928

Such was his virtuosity that it took Kenny Drew only three years from taking up the piano at the age of five to giving his first public recital when he was eight. In his youth he was much influenced by Fats Waller, Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum. His first professional work was as an accompanist at the Pearl Primus Dance School. He studied at the High School of Music and Art in New York and was at his most impressionable as a teenager in the turbulent years of the bebop revolution of the Forties when his heroes were the pianists Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk. When Drew's own style matured it reflected all these interests, and it was unusual for a pianist of his era to refer back in his playing to Waller and Wilson.

Drew was a clear-thinking improviser who created long melodic lines which, unlike those of many of his contemporaries, resolved naturally, giving his work a great strength of form. On the other hand he was not a sensational player and his cerebral approach usually controlled his emotions. He was a superb accompanist and his first recording, in 1950, was with Howard McGhee, and over the next two years he worked in bands led by Buddy DeFranco, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, and Charlie Parker, among others. After a brief period with his own trio in California, Drew returned to New York, playing with Dinah Washington, Johnny Griffin, Buddy Rich, and several others over the following few years.

He moved to California in 1951 and recorded with many of the West Coast stars such as Joe Maini and Jack Sheldon. When he formed his superb quartet in 1952 the bebop clarinettist Buddy DeFranco hired Drew along with the drummer Art Blakey. The altoist Frank Morgan recalls: 'I went to jail for the first time in my life in 1953, San Francisco. Kenny Drew and I got busted together. I was working with Oscar Pettiford and he was with Buddy DeFranco at the same club.' While Morgan was in and out of jail for the next 30 years for drug offences, Drew seemed to have brought his problem under control.

                         Here’s “Gloria” from above 1953 LP

He made several albums with his own trio in 1953 and signed with the Riverside label in 1957, for whom he recorded copiously over the next few years. In September 1957 he joined some of the best young musicians of the day to record for Blue Note under the leadership of the tenorist John Coltrane. The resulting album, Blue Train, was a powerful element in the tide which changed the direction of jazz at the end of the Fifties.

Drew was one of the American jazz musicians who settled in Europe around this period: he moved to Paris in 1961 and to Copenhagen three years later. While he sacrificed much of the interest of the American jazz audience, he gained a wide following across Europe. Kenny Drew was a well-known figure on the Copenhagen jazz scene, recording many sessions with the Danish bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen. "Living in Copenhagen, and travelling out from there," Drew remarked, "I have probably worked in more different contexts than if I had stayed in New York where I might have got musically locked in with a set-group of musicians. This way, I have been able to keep my musical antennas in shape, while at the same time I have had more time to study and also get deeper into my own endeavors."

The partnership between Drew and Pedersen was to last for the rest of Drew's life and they frequently worked as a duo. At the Montmartre Drew was able to work for long periods and often record with visiting Americans like the tenorists Ben Webster, Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz (each of whom also took up residence in Denmark at this period), Sonny Rollins, Zoot Sims, Johnny Griffin, Hank Mobley, Yusef Lateef, Joe Henderson and the maverick violinist Stuff Smith. Drew and Dexter Gordon appeared on screen in Ole Ege's theatrically released hardcore pornographic film, Pornografi – en musical (1971), for which they composed and performed the score.

From the late Seventies onwards Drew devoted a lot of his time to composing and orchestrating. He formed a successful music publishing company and was co-owner of the Matrix record company. He was prominent in European radio circles and his many compositions included Suite for Big Band, written for the Danish Radio Orchestra.

Drew died in August 1993 in Copenhagen, Denmark (he had stomach cancer, but it was unclear if this was the cause of death) and was interred in the Assistens Cemetery in Nørrebro, Copenhagen. Earlier that year he won Denmark's coveted Palay Bar jazz award. He has a street named after him in southern Copenhagen, "Kenny Drews Vej" (Eng., Kenny Drew Street). 

(Edited from Wikipedia & The Independent)

Recorded live at The Brewhouse Theatre, England 1992. Kenny Drew (Piano) 

Niels Henning Orsted Pedersen (Double Bass)  Alvin Queen (Drums)

Track list:

1) In Your Own Sweet Way 2) Hush-A-Bye 3) Saint Thomas 4) It Could Happen To You

5) It Might As Well Be Spring