Music
Kiane Zawadi
1932–2024 · jazz trombonist, euphonium player
Detroit-born trombonist and one of jazz's rare euphonium soloists, who came up with Barry Harris and Sonny Stitt and left for New York with Yusef Lateef in 1959.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Brooklyn, New York City
aged 91- Birth name
- Bernard Atwell McKinney
- Also known as
- Bernard McKinney
- Detroit years
- 1932–1959
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Bernard McKinney was born in Detroit into a family of ten children, several of whom became musicians, among them pianist and educator Harold McKinney. He began his professional career in 1951 working with pianist Barry Harris and saxophonist Sonny Stitt, played in Alvin Jackson's band, and in the mid-1950s spent time with Art Blakey. He was part of the Detroit circle around multi-reed player Yusef Lateef and moved with Lateef to New York in 1959, recording on albums such as The Dreamer and The Fabric of Jazz. Taking up the euphonium as a solo voice, a rarity in jazz, he worked through the 1960s with Illinois Jacquet, James Moody, Curtis Fuller, Freddie Hubbard and Sun Ra, and late in the decade took the name Kiane Zawadi. In the 1970s he played with Archie Shepp, Abdullah Ibrahim and McCoy Tyner, and in the Broadway pit orchestra of Dancin'. He died in Brooklyn in 2024 at the age of 91.
Highlights
- Worked with Barry Harris and Sonny Stitt from 1951
- Moved to New York with Yusef Lateef in 1959
- One of the few jazz soloists on the euphonium
- Recorded with Freddie Hubbard, Archie Shepp and McCoy Tyner