Bill Cole (musician)


William Shadrack Cole is an American jazz musician, professor of music, and author. Cole specializes in non-Western wind instruments, including the Ghanaian atenteben, Chinese suona, Korean hojok and piri, South Indian nagaswaram, North Indian shehnai, Tibetan trumpet, and Australian didjeridu. Cole has a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University. He has written two books, one on Miles Davis and one on John Coltrane. Cole is the founder and leader of the Untempered Ensemble.

Career

Cole was a professor of music at Amherst College from 1972 until 1974 and at Dartmouth College from 1974 until his resignation in 1990. As of 2016, Cole is listed as a recent emeritus professor in the Department of African American Studies at Syracuse University.

Collaborations

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

''Dartmouth Review'' controversy

Beginning in 1983, Cole was targeted by a series of articles in The Dartmouth Review for his unconventional teaching style. After a local newspaper cited the Review articles to call Cole "incompetent", Cole sued the Review for slander. Cole also sued the Review for libel, but he later dropped that suit. The slander case was settled out of court after two years without The Review admitting guilt or providing any monetary compensation, but both the Reviews and Cole's reputations were damaged. In 1988, three editors to the Dartmouth Review recorded Cole on camera and audio tape during one of his classes, eliciting a violent reaction which damaged the camera. The school charged the three with harassment and disorderly conduct, and suspended them. However, Cole was unable to continue teaching; he said, "I was totally blackballed."

Books

Cole wrote a book on Miles Davis entitled Miles Davis: The Early Years and a book on John Coltrane entitled John Coltrane.

Musical recordings

Solo and with selected artists

From various labels