Music
Harold McKinney
1928–2001 · jazz pianist, composer, bandleader, educator
Detroit pianist, composer and teacher, a committed bebopper who played with visiting giants and co-founded both Tribe and the Rebirth jazz-education organization.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Detroit, Michigan
aged 72- Detroit years
- 1928–2001
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Born in Detroit on the Fourth of July, 1928, McKinney grew up in a musical family; his brothers included euphonium and trombone player Bernard McKinney, later known as Kiane Zawadi. He combined classical training with a fierce love of Charlie Parker's bebop and over the years played with Parker, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Yusef Lateef and Kenny Burrell when they came through Detroit. He was a synesthete, hearing colors and seeing sounds, and admired the World Stage collective that shaped the city's avant-garde in the 1960s. In the early 1970s he joined saxophonist Wendell Harrison and trombonist Phil Ranelin in Tribe, the label, magazine and collective built on urban self-determination, and in 1978 he and Harrison founded Rebirth, Inc. to teach jazz to young Detroiters. Generations of students, among them composers of the Detroit Artists Workshop, learned from him. He died at Henry Ford Hospital in 2001 after a series of strokes.
Highlights
- Co-founder of the Tribe collective in the 1970s
- Co-founded Rebirth, Inc. with Wendell Harrison in 1978
- Played with Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis and John Coltrane
- Duet album with Harrison, Something for Pops (1993)