In a bad month for music related deaths (RIP Donna Summer, Robin Gibb and Chuck Brown) sometimes the lesser known folks, but never the less pioneers, go less noticed.

Chicago guitar player Pete Cosey was one of those. A unique and eclectic guitarist who is less known than he ought to have been.

I first noticed his incredible guitar conceptions when I heard these -

Which are the two darkest entries in Miles’ mid 70s blackrockjazztapeeditprogfunkfusion series. Pete Cosey’s playing dominates these records and takes them far far out in an orgy of progressive guitar sounds. Honestly I didn’t really get them til much later and then I did. And here’s why

and you can see Pete Cosey doing his thing above after Miles takes his chops. He looks weird, is playing a weird guitar, and the stuff he jams is out there. So you see him at his best!

But before I got it I heard this wicked acid wah wah guitar lick in a David Holmes mixtape

Naturally I immediately had to have it and found it was from Electric Mud on the progressive Chess imprint Cadet. Cadet had a cool concept of recutting the labels old blues greats on new “rock n roll” settings at the request of Marshall Chess (son of the owners). This produced records Marshall liked and the artists hated. They didn’t sell that much really but they remain great and sound very modern now.

And that monster of an evil growling riff is Pete Cosey I believe. And for that (and all his other work from Miles to the Rotary Connection) give thanks for him.

God has some good guitar players now, but this certainly is one of the most interesting.

-TH