JANIE COWAN

Alaskan grown Janie Cowan is in love with the double bass.  Begining Suzuki piano at age four and then finding the double bass at age ten, she pursued all avenues of study available and eventually received formal training at The Oberlin Conservatory of music on scholarship.  There she learned from such luminaries as Jamey Haddad, Eddie Gomez and Billy Hart.  She followed the jazz and classical performance curiculums but was more drawn to the space and flexibility in modern music traditions, pioneering the double bass in different contexts and expanding into it's electronic capabilities.  She has built herself a small experimental studio in the Mojave desert of California where she does remote recording and dreams up deeper sonic explorations.

 

Having made appearances on Dutch and Hungarian national TV, Bulgarian National Radio, NPR and BBC 1, she has reaches worldwide.  You will find her contented busking on the streets, playing dance and music festivals, sold out venues like the 9:30 club, Irving Plaza, 1st Ave or the 100 Club, in your living room or local public library.  She is confident to have played in some of the weirdest and most obscure settings imaginable.

 

Through her travels with many bands (Blato Zlato, Vera Sola, Fentress, Heidi Burson Band, Cowan/Hoffnar Duo,VaNa MaZi...) as well as picking up gigs with locals as she goes, Janie has found her voice in the healing properties of drone bass.  She is most happy when she is able to drone a D for hours in a dynamic group.  In recent years she has been grateful to participate and perform for festivals through the EEFC (Eastern-European Folk Camps) and the MACC (Mexican American Cultural Center) sharing and learning international folk traditions.  She has immersed herself in and pursues the studies of music from Ethiopia, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, Argentina, American folk, European Classical, the Middle East, the Balkans, Sephardim and America's Soul, psych and songwriting traditions.