Bill Cole

Bill Cole is an American jazz musician, composer, educator and author. Cole specializes in non-Western wind instruments, especially double reed horns: including Chinese sonas, Korean hojok and piri; Indian nagaswarm and shenai and Tibetan trumpet; as well as the Australian digeridoo and Ghanaian flute. Cole is the leader of the Untempered Ensemble, a group he founded in 1992. He has performed with Sam Rivers, Billy Bang, Jayne Cortez, Julius Hemphill, Ornette Coleman, James Blood Ulmer, and many others, at staged venues including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, around the U.S. and Europe. Cole’s work as a composer springs from jazz and African themes. Cole has a PhD in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University, and served as Professor of music at Amherst and Dartmouth College until 1990. He went on to Chair the Department of African American Studies at Syracuse University. Cole has authored two books; Miles Davis: The Early Years and John Coltrane; and has published numerous reviews and critical essays.