Kenny Kosek


Kenny Kosek, is an American fiddler who plays bluegrass, country, klezmer, folk music and roots music. In addition to his solo career, he has performed with many other well-known performers and contributed to film and television soundtrack music. He is also a musical educator. He is a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science and City College of New York.
WWW kennykosek.com

Influences and performing career

Kenny Kosek's early musical influences included Clark Kessinger, Vassar Clements, The New Lost City Ramblers, Kenny Baker and the May Brothers – Andy and Henry. While attending college, he played with The Star Spangled String Band and The Livingstone Cowboys, and freelanced in the Bleecker Street folk scene. His first post-collegiate professional work was as a member of the David Bromberg Band, and with a short-lived rock band, White Cloud, led by legendary hipster producer Thomas Jefferson Kaye. With Citizen Kafka and John Goodman, he wrote for and performed in the Citizen Kafka Show, a monthly improv and sketch comedy show that ran on WBAI-FM in New York City through the 1980s, and as "Johnny Angry Red Weltz" was part of Citizen Kafka's influential newgrass group, the Wretched Refuse String Band. He is similarly a part of Margot Leverett's fusion quintet The Klezmer Mountain Boys.

Career in music

In the early 1970s, Kenny Kosek was a member of the progressive bluegrass band Country Cooking with Peter Wernick and Tony Trischka on banjo, Russ Barenberg on guitar. On their first album John Miller plays bass, and Harry Gilmore mandolin. On their second album, the band played with veteran mandolinist Frank Wakefield, and was later joined by Andy Statman for the third album, with Nondi Leonard doing the vocals on these last two albums. In 1974, Russ Barenberg recorded a solo guitar album with the other members of Country Cooking. Tony Trischka and Peter Wernick went their separate ways, but Kenny Kosek accompanied them on their first albums, and would continue to play occasionally with Tony Trischka for the next fifty years.
Between 1976 and 1978, Kenny Kosek joined banjoist Bill Keith, with whom he recorded an album in the USA and an album in France. While in France, he also played some fiddle parts on French banjo player 's first solo album, banjoistiquement votre, and performed at the 1978 International Folk Festival in Courville-sur-Eure, France, both with Bill Keith and Jim Collier, and with his former fellow musicians Tony Trischka and Russ Barenberg, as well as with French mandolin player and bassist Lionel Wendling, who joined the two bands.
From the mid-1970s onwards, Kenny Kosek also worked as a studio musician7, recording with Steve Goodman, Chaka Kahn, James Taylor, David Byrne, Boy George, Willie Nelson, Tom Chapin, Doug Sahm, Leonard Cohen, and John Denver. He performed with the Late Night Band on the Late Night with David Letterman and at Sting's annual benefit concert for the rainforests at Carnegie Hall.
In the eighties, Kenny Kosek replaced Richard Greene on the fiddle in the “New Blue Velvet Band”, with Jim Rooney, Eric Weissberg and Bill Keith, to tour major folk festivals in Canada, continental Europe, Great Britain, Ireland and the northeastern United States. On October 15, 1987, the Jerry García Acoustic Band began a series of concerts on Broadway. Bluegrass multi-instrumentalist Sandy Rothman, a long-time friend of Jerry Garcia, was also a friend of Kenny Kosek, who was invited to join the band. After a fortnight of concerts in New York, the Jerry García Acoustic Band returned to California for more concerts at the end of 1987, where they recorded two albums, the first released at the end of 1988, and the second in 2011, twenty-two years later. This short collaboration helped Kenny Kosek to make a name for himself beyond studio and bluegrass circles, particularly with the Deadhead. The New York recordings were released in 2004 and 2015, together with the electric recordings of the Jerry Garcia Band.
In 2001, Klezmer clarinettist Margot Leverett founded the band Margot Leverett and the Klezmer Mountain Boys, which fuses klezmer and bluegrass styles. The band is made up of Kenny Kosek, Barry Mitterhoff, Joe Selly and Marty Confurius. Margot Leverett and the Klezmer Mountain Boys has released two albums: a self-titled album in 2002 and an album entitled Second Avenue Square Dance. The band was featured by the Paul Taylor Dance Company in a piece entitled “Klezmerbluegras ”. At the end of 2005, he took part, a guitar and
fiddle player, in the Broadway show : Almost Heaven: The Songs of John Denver.
His distinctive roots-music-inspired sound has been part of the soundtracks of many documentaries including The Way West, The Donner Party, Harlan County, U.S.A., The High Lonesome Sound, and the television shows Another World, The Guiding Light, and The Kirby Kids.
In 2024, Kenny Kosek released “Twisted Sage”, a set of fifteen fiddle tracks recorded over ten years ago, most of them with banjo player Tony Trischka. A few other close friends are occasionally involved: Andy Statman on mandolin, banjo player Marty Cutler and guitar player Mark Cosgrove. There are many traditional tunes, but also a handful of original works by Kenny Kosek. According to Donald Teplyske:
Kenny Kosek said:

As a musical educator

Kosek is deeply involved with music education. His musical instruction videos Learning Country Fiddle, Learning Bluegrass Fiddle, and Bluegrass Classics are available from Homespun Tapes and Videos. He has been a guest instructor at the Falun Folk Festival, Sweden, Tonder, Denmark Festival, the Sore Fingers Music camp, Cotswolds, England, the Big Apple Bluegrass Festival, and the Rathcoole, Ireland Folk Arts Festival. He is a staff instructor in country fiddle at the Turtle Bay Music School in New York City. With Stacy Phillips, he co-authored Bluegrass Fiddle Styles, sometimes called the "yellow Bible" of bluegrass.

Stage and film performances

In addition to performing music, Kosek has appeared in many dramatic productions: in the movies They All Laughed and The Stepford Wives; on Broadway, in The Robber Bridegroom, Platinum, Play Me A Country Song, Foxfire, Big River, Jerry Garcia on Broadway and Footloose; and off-Broadway, in Feast Here Tonight, Das Barbecü, That and the Cup of Tea, A Celtic Christmas, Lost Highway, and Picon Pie.

Humor

Kosek is also known as a humorist; he has written for the National Lampoon, contributed to numerous radio programs, and written liner notes for many fellow performers.

Discography

Solo albums

Hasty Lonesome Angelwood
  • ''Twisted Sage''

Permanent member of a Bluegrass band

  • Country Cooking- 14 Bluegrass Instrumentals
  • Frank Wakefield Frank Wakefieled with Country Cooking
  • Country Cooking- Barrel of Fun
  • Russ Barenberg, Country Cooking Bluegrass Guitar
  • Tony Trischka Early Years - Compilation of Bluegrass Light et Heartlands
  • Country Cooking With The Fiction Brothers
  • Breakfast Special
  • Welcome to Wretched Refuse
  • Bill Keith, Something Auld, Something Newgrass, Something Borrowed, Something Bluegrass, 1998)
  • Bill Keith & Jim Collier, 199 742, )

Membre du Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band

Klezmer Mountain Boys

  • Margot Leverett & The Klezmer Mountain Boys
  • Margot Leverett & The Klezmer Mountain Boys ''2nd Avenue Square Dance''

Occasional participation in Folk, Bluegrass & Klezmer recordings

  • Roger Sprung, Hal Wylie & the Progressive Bluegrassers Bluegrass blast : a mixed bag of ol' timey music,
  • Hazel Dickens et Alice Gerrard Working Girl Blues : 2,3,9
  • Jack Tottle Back Road Mandolin
  • Red Allen, Don Reno and Frank Wakefield The Berkshire Mountains Bluegrass Festival 1976
  • Tom Paxton Heroes Banjoistiquement Votre,
  • Andy Statman Flatbush Waltz - Bluegrass & Klezmer
  • Tony Trischka, Bill Keith & Béla Fleck Fiddle Tunes For Banjo Blue Shades
  • Bill Keith, Banjoistics
  • Andy Statman Nashville Mornings New York Nights
  • Andy Statman Andy’s Rambles
  • Peter Rowan and the Wild Stallions, 1994
  • Kenny Kosek Weird Nightmare with Tony Trischka, Bobby Previte, Barry Mitterhoff, Howard Levy, Susan Evans, Bob Stewart
  • Tony Trischka World Turning
  • Luboš Malina Piece Of Cake
  • Compilation: Song Of The Hills: Appalachian Classics
  • Tom Chapin Common Ground
  • James Reams & The Barnstormers Barnstormin )
  • Stacy Phillips – From The Inside
  • Ben Freed Suite for Bluegrass Banjo
  • Mark Cosgrove Sweet Reason
  • The Binyomin Ginzberg Trio – Purim Sameach
  • Kassie DePaiva I Want To Love You
  • Ben Freed Banjopolis
  • Ben Freed American Idle
  • Kenny Kosek Dear Jean: Artists Celebrate Jean Ritchie with Peter Pickow, Jon Pickow
  • Leslie Evers – ''I Can't Remember My Dreams''

Some of the references as a session musician

Publications

  • Stacy Phillips et Kenny Kosek, Bluegrass Fiddle Styles, AMSCO Music, 1992, 112 pages,
  • Kenny Kosek, Bluegrass And Country Fiddle, Homespun, 2003, 37 pages