Kenny Kosek

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Kenny Kosek
Kennykosek.jpg
Kenny Kosek
Background information
Born1949 (age 75–76)
The Bronx, New York, U.S.
Genres Bluegrass, country, folk, klezmer
Occupation Musician
Instrument Fiddle
Years active1970s–present
Website kennykosek.com

Kenny Kosek (born 1949 in The Bronx, New York), is an American fiddler who plays bluegrass, country, klezmer, folk music and roots music. In addition to his solo career, he has performed with many other well-known performers and contributed to film and television soundtrack music. He is also a musical educator. He is a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science and City College of New York.

Contents

Influences and performing career

Kenny Kosek's early musical influences included Clark Kessinger, Vassar Clements, The New Lost City Ramblers, [1] Kenny Baker and the May Brothers – Andy and Henry. While attending college, he played with The Star Spangled String Band and The Livingstone Cowboys, and freelanced in the Bleecker Street folk scene. His first post-collegiate professional work was as a member of the David Bromberg Band, and with a short-lived rock band, White Cloud, led by legendary hipster producer Thomas Jefferson Kaye. With Citizen Kafka and John Goodman, he wrote for and performed in the Citizen Kafka Show, a monthly improv and sketch comedy show that ran on WBAI-FM in New York City through the 1980s, [2] [3] and as "Johnny Angry Red Weltz" was part of Citizen Kafka's influential newgrass group, the Wretched Refuse String Band. [4] He is similarly a part of Margot Leverett's fusion quintet The Klezmer Mountain Boys. [5]

Career in music

In the early 1970s, Kenny Kosek was a member of the progressive bluegrass band Country Cooking with Peter Wernick and Tony Trischka on banjo, Russ Barenberg on guitar. On their first album (14 Bluegrass Instrumentals, 1971) John Miller plays bass, and Harry Gilmore mandolin. [6] On their second album (1972), the band played with veteran mandolinist Frank Wakefield, and was later joined by Andy Statman (mandolin, saxophone, percussion) for the third album (Barrel of Fun, 1974), with Nondi Leonard doing the vocals on these last two albums. In 1974, Russ Barenberg recorded a solo guitar album with the other members of Country Cooking (Greg Root on mandolin). Tony Trischka and Peter Wernick went their separate ways, but Kenny Kosek accompanied them on their first albums, and would continue to play occasionally with Tony Trischka for the next fifty years.

Between 1976 and 1978, Kenny Kosek joined banjoist Bill Keith, with whom he recorded an album in the USA (Something Auld, Something Newgrass, Something Borrowed, Something Bluegrass, Rounder, 1976) and an album in France (with Jim Collier, Hexagone, 1978). While in France, he also played some fiddle parts on French banjo player Jean-Marie Redon  [ fr ]'s first solo album, banjoistiquement votre, and performed at the 1978 International Folk Festival in Courville-sur-Eure, France, both with Bill Keith and Jim Collier, and with his former fellow musicians Tony Trischka and Russ Barenberg, as well as with French mandolin player Christian Seguret  [ fr ] and bassist Lionel Wendling, who joined the two bands. [7]

From the mid-1970s onwards, Kenny Kosek also worked as a studio musician7, recording with Steve Goodman (1976), [8] Chaka Kahn (en), [9] James Taylor (1985), David Byrne (1990), [10] Boy George, [1] Willie Nelson, Tom Chapin, Doug Sahm, Leonard Cohen, and John Denver. He performed with the Late Night Band on the Late Night with David Letterman and at Sting's annual benefit concert for the rainforests at Carnegie Hall. [1]

In the eighties, Kenny Kosek replaced Richard Greene on the fiddle in the “New Blue Velvet Band”, with Jim Rooney, Eric Weissberg and Bill Keith, to tour major folk festivals in Canada, continental Europe, Great Britain, Ireland and the northeastern United States. [11] On October 15, 1987, the Jerry García Acoustic Band began a series of concerts on Broadway. Bluegrass multi-instrumentalist Sandy Rothman, a long-time friend of Jerry Garcia, was also a friend of Kenny Kosek, who was invited to join the band. [12] After a fortnight of concerts in New York, the Jerry García Acoustic Band returned to California for more concerts at the end of 1987, where they recorded two albums, the first released at the end of 1988, and the second in 2011, twenty-two years later. [13] This short collaboration helped Kenny Kosek to make a name for himself beyond studio and bluegrass circles, particularly with the Deadhead (fans of the Grateful Dead). [14] The New York recordings were released in 2004 and 2015, together with the electric recordings of the Jerry Garcia Band. [12] [15]

In 2001, Klezmer clarinettist Margot Leverett founded the band Margot Leverett and the Klezmer Mountain Boys, which fuses klezmer and bluegrass styles. The band is made up of Kenny Kosek, Barry Mitterhoff (mandolin, guitar), Joe Selly (guitar) and Marty Confurius (bass). Margot Leverett and the Klezmer Mountain Boys has released two albums: a self-titled album in 2002 and an album entitled Second Avenue Square Dance. The band was featured by the Paul Taylor Dance Company in a piece entitled “Klezmerbluegras ”. [16] At the end of 2005 (November–December), he took part, a guitar and fiddle player, in the Broadway show (Promenade Theatre) : Almost Heaven: The Songs of John Denver. [17]

His distinctive roots-music-inspired sound has been part of the soundtracks of many documentaries including The Way West, The Donner Party, Harlan County, U.S.A., The High Lonesome Sound, and the television shows Another World (NBC), The Guiding Light (CBS), and The Kirby Kids (Fox).

In 2024, Kenny Kosek released “Twisted Sage” (Shefa Records), a set of fifteen fiddle tracks recorded over ten years ago (mostly between 2013 and 2017), most of them with banjo player Tony Trischka. A few other close friends are occasionally involved: Andy Statman on mandolin, banjo player Marty Cutler and guitar player Mark Cosgrove. There are many traditional tunes, but also a handful of original works by Kenny Kosek. According to Donald Teplyske: [18]

Many of these songs are, naturally, ‘traditional’ fiddle tunes, fiddle and banjo tunes, stringband tunes…but they are presented here having filtered through decades of influence and experimentation, not to mention Kosek and Trischka’s years of playing and interpretation. This music is foundational to roots and Americana sounds, but is not stuck in a mythical past where music is pure and unchanged from the 1800s

Kenny Kosek said: [19]

It really is a return to more traditional kind of thing, even though there are pieces on Twisted Sage that are not traditional. There’s a klezmer tune that I learned from Andy Statman that gets pretty crazy. And there’s some more adventurous stuff. But overall, it’s coming from basically a fiddle and banjo format, and returning to stuff that I was doing in the ’60s.(...) Over the course of my career, I’ve been associated with people that have done some very innovative, daring kind of stuff. Tony Trischka and Andy Statman come to mind. And our little band was pushing all kinds of envelopes. So this does have a certain return to my roots in a way. That’s true.

As a musical educator

Kosek is deeply involved with music education. His musical instruction videos Learning Country Fiddle, Learning Bluegrass Fiddle, and Bluegrass Classics are available from Homespun Tapes and Videos. He has been a guest instructor at the Falun Folk Festival, Sweden, Tonder, Denmark Festival, the Sore Fingers Music camp, Cotswolds, England, the Big Apple Bluegrass Festival (1998–2002), and the Rathcoole, Ireland Folk Arts Festival (2004). He is a staff instructor in country fiddle at the Turtle Bay Music School in New York City. With Stacy Phillips, he co-authored Bluegrass Fiddle Styles, sometimes called the "yellow Bible" of bluegrass. [20]

Stage and film performances

In addition to performing music, Kosek has appeared in many dramatic productions: in the movies They All Laughed and The Stepford Wives ; on Broadway, in The Robber Bridegroom , Platinum , Play Me A Country Song, Foxfire , Big River , Jerry Garcia on Broadway and Footloose ; and off-Broadway, in Feast Here Tonight, Das Barbecü, That and the Cup of Tea, A Celtic Christmas, Lost Highway, and Picon Pie .

Humor

Kosek is also known as a humorist; he has written for the National Lampoon , contributed to numerous radio programs, and written liner notes for many fellow performers.

Discography

Solo albums

Permanent member of a Bluegrass band

Membre du Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band

Klezmer Mountain Boys

Occasional participation in Folk, Bluegrass & Klezmer recordings

Some of the references as a session musician

Publications

References

  1. 1 2 3 Stacy Phillips, "Gigging fiddler: Kenny Kosek: Life without a day job", Strings, 1 January 2000, online [ dead link ].
  2. ↑ Jackie Lyden, "Citizen Kafka's Most Important Contribution? Himself", NPR Weekend All Things Considered, 21 March 2009, transcript online at Highbeam.
  3. ↑ Robert Siegel and Linda Wertheimer, "Profile: Citizen Kafka's career in radio", NPR All Things Considered, 17 April 2001, transcript online at Highbeam.
  4. ↑ Ken Hunt, "Richard Shulberg", The Independent , 23 March 2009, online at Highbeam.
  5. ↑ Jon Kalish, "Mixing Mountain Musics; How One Band Combines Klezmer and Bluegrass", The Forward , 14 November 2003, online at Highbeam.
  6. ↑ https://bluegrasstoday.com/country-cooking-a-look-back-50-years-hence/
  7. ↑ Jean Marie Redon  [ fr ] et Charley Sifaoui, "Courville 78",L'escargot Folk, N° 57 septembre 1978, pp.20-21.
  8. ↑ Steve Goodman Words We Can Dance To pistes 4 - Between The Lines et 8 - Death Of A Salesman
  9. ↑ Chaka Khan WBR 92. 3729-1, 1982 pistes 3 - Best In The West et 4 - Got To Be There
  10. ↑ participation in the anti-AIDS album “Red, hot and blue (A Tribute To Cole Porter To Benefit AIDS Research And Relief)”, track 8 on a cover of the songDon't fence me i.
  11. ↑ ERIC WEISSBERG, by Jim Collier Posted on April 15, 2020/
  12. 1 2 Blair, Jackson (1999). Garcia: An American Life. Viking. pp. 372–374. ISBN   0670886602.
  13. ↑ Ragged but Right and Almost Acoustic
  14. ↑ "Something Old, Something New from the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band". dead.net. 11 October 2010. Retrieved 12 February 2025.
  15. ↑ "The High Lonesome Song of Jerry Garcia". bluegrassunlimited.com. 3 January 2024. Retrieved 12 February 2025.
  16. ↑ https://jweekly.com/2005/03/11/arts-culture-br-taylor-made/ sur Arts & Culture:Taylor-made Klezmerbluegrass 11/03/2005 sur jweekly.com
  17. ↑ internet Broadway database
  18. ↑ Kenny Kosek with Tony Trischka- Twisted Sage review, Published by Donald Teplyske, posted 09/11/2024
  19. ↑ Bluegrass Today: NY fiddler Kenny Kosek talks Twisted Sage, and a life long passion for bluegrass, Posted on August 30, 2024 by Lee Zimmerman
  20. ↑ New York: Oak, 1978, ISBN   9780825601859; Janet Farar-Royce, "Stacy Phillips Bluegrass Fiddle Boot Camp.(Video Recording Review)", Sing Out!, 22 September 2003, online at Highbeam.
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