Jon Cowherd is the definition of “a musician’s musician”. While the Kentucky-raised, New Orleans-schooled, New York-honed, and currently Nashville-based Cowherd is best known for his long-running partnership with drummer/bandleader Brian Blade (with whom he co-founded the Grammy nominated Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band), he is equally at ease in the roles of musical director, side man, or studio wizard. Cowherd's stellar keyboard work and singular compositional skills are driven, simply, by a lifelong drive to “just be a great musician.”
Cowherd left Paducah, KY for New Orleans to study French Horn. Arriving in the Big Easy, he was amazed by the way in which jazz is woven into the culture. “Not only did I hear elders, older musicians playing, but kids my age. I had no idea. Kids my age were into jazz!” When touring Loyola University, he happened upon the Ellis Marsalis Quartet. “I heard his band, and I just didn't realize that it was a living art form. I was very attracted to the harmonic language and the rhythm and the virtuosity that I heard them playing with. And it inspired me to try to get to that level someday.”
Photo by Todd Chalfant
While enrolled at Loyola, Cowherd was tasked with playing piano for the saxophone auditions for the school’s big band. While playing, he noticed that he and the drummer seemed to be hooking up on a lot of rhythms. During a break, the drummer wandered over to Cowherd and said “Hi, my name's Brian Blade. I feel like we hear music in a similar way.” “I felt that too” says Cowherd. “Our first conversation really was with music, before it became language.” They became fast friends and would eventually go on to form the Fellowship band.
After college, Cowherd moved to New York City and had the opportunity to play Gospel. “I realized that there was a distinction on the piano between a gospel chord voicing and a jazz chord voicing, but the lines did cross a bit” Cowherd explains. “I discovered that trying to inspire people was really what was important, to play with the right feel and evoke emotion. It doesn't matter what your music language is, that’s the thread running through everything.”
Playing with “the right feel” has opened doors for Cowherd and allows him to be a bit of a chameleon, genre-wise. When not recording and touring with the Fellowship, Cowherd has worked extensively with a broad array of players and singers from the jazz, pop and rock worlds, including Andy James, Joni Mitchell, Norah Jones, Brandi Carlile, KD Lang, Rosanne Cash, Iggy Pop, Glen Hansard, Cassandra Wilson, John Scofield, John Patitucci and Lizz Wright. “I love collaborating with other people” he says. “I doesn’t matter if I just lay down some tasteful chords on the background of an acoustic pop song, or if I’m going to be on the road playing Hammond with a rock band.”
Exploring music in all of its wonderous variety has, in turn, deepened Cowherd’s love of jazz. “I enjoy seeing different cultures merging with jazz and its vocabulary and history. But they're all playing jazz, playing the harmonic language and improvising. There's freedom and there's unity and there's people from all over coming together. It brings people together as a community.” Jazz has been “dying” since the day it was born, but Cowherd doesn’t really entertain that thought. “As an art form, it'll always be here because of what it allows the musician to do. “There’s a freedom to jazz. I think acknowledging the history is the only rule, really.”
In 2013, ArtistShare and Blue Note records released “Mercy”, Cowherd’s first album as a leader. The record features Bill Frisell, John Patitucci and Brian Blade. Cowherd and Blade also directed the all-star Joni Mitchell tribute “Joni 75” along with such artists as Brandi Carlile, Glen Hansard, Emmylou Harris, Norah Jones, Chaka Khan, Diana Krall, Kris Kristofferson, Los Lobos with Marisoul, Graham Nash, Seal, James Taylor and Rufus Wainwright. In 2017 Cowherd released “Gateway” on the exclusive “vinyl only” Newvelle record label. “Gateway” consists of seven compositions by Cowherd and one from Brian Blade, and features Steve Cardenas and Tony Scherr. As an arranger, Cowherd has scored for big band, strings and symphony orchestra for Brandi Carlile, Cassandra Wilson, Lizz Wright, the Fellowship Band and the Shreveport Symphony and the Loyola University Symphony Orchestra. In 2023 The Jon Cowherd Trio released “Pride & Joy”, featuring John Patitucci, Brian Blade, Chris Potter, and Alex Acuna.