Jazz drummer who played on Kind of Blue
Jimmy Cobb, who has died aged 91, was a revered jazz drummer, and the last survivor of the sextet that performed on Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue – widely regarded as the bestselling album in jazz history. His great talent was his ability to “play understatedly, almost casually, without letting the beat or the momentum sag”, said The New York Times. Davis had such confidence in him, he barely gave him any direction at all. “He said, ‘Jimmy, you know what to do. Just make it sound like it’s floating,’” Cobb recalled.
Born in Washington in 1929, Jimmy Cobb was the son of a security guard and a cleaner. His parents divorced, and from a young age he worked to support his mother – shining shoes or delivering newspapers; in the summer, he would toil on his grandparents’ tobacco farm in Maryland. Having fallen in love with drums in his teens, he started by hammering out rhythms with a fork, but by his 20s, had become so proficient, he was working in clubs, accompanying the likes of Billie Holiday. He then joined one of Dinah Washington’s bands, and for a time, he lived with the singer. One day, in 1958, he was at home in New York when he got a call from Davis, asking him if he could make a gig that night in Boston. He jumped on a plane, and arrived at the club just as the band (which also included the saxophonist John Coltrane) was beginning
’Round Midnight. Kind of Blue was recorded the next year; it has since sold five million copies. He was paid $150.
He played on several other Davis albums, then left to collaborate with countless other jazz artists, including Sarah Vaughan. He also taught at Stanford University. Even when times were lean in the jazz world, the Davis connection ensured he was in demand. As he put it, “You have to be at the right place at the right time with the right stuff, and then you got a chance.”