Innovative blues, jazz guitarist Pete Cosey dies

CHICAGO – Pete Cosey, an innovative guitarist who brought his distinctive distorted sound to recordings with Miles Davis, Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters, has died, his daughter said. He was 68.

Mariama Cosey said her father died May 30 of complications from surgery in Chicago.

Pete Cosey was born in Chicago, and later moved to Arizona, where, according to a Chicago Tribune article, he started to develop his unique sound.

In the 1960s, Cosey was a member of the studio band at Chess Records in Chicago, where he played with Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. Cosey also played on many of Miles Davis’ boundary-pushing recordings in the 1970s.

His daughter said Cosey considered music a language. It’s “one way that everyone around the world communicates,” she said.