Todd Cochran

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please help improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (October 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article or section may have been copied and pasted from another location, possibly in violation of Wikipedia's copyright policy. Please review the source and remedy this by editing this article to remove any non-free copyrighted content and attributing free content correctly, or flagging the content for deletion. Please be sure that the supposed source of the copyright violation is not itself a Wikipedia mirror. (October 2021) This article is written like a story. Please help rewrite this article to introduce an encyclopedic style and a neutral point of view. (October 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Todd Cochran
Background information
Born	(1951-09-03) 3 September 1951 (age 73) San Francisco, California, U.S.
Genres	Jazz contemporary classical jazz fusion art rock progressive pop avant-garde
Occupations	Musician bandleader composer producer
Instruments	Piano keyboards
Years active	1969 - present
Labels	Fantasy-Prestige Island BMG Atlantic Sony CBS Omnivore Sunnyside
Website	www.toddcochran.com

Todd Cochran (born September 3, 1951) is an American pianist, composer, keyboardist, essayist, and conceptual artist. Early in his career he was also professionally known as Bayeté. Cochran started his career as a teenager with saxophonist John Handy.^[1] Two years later he joined vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson’s^[2] Quartet, and made his jazz recording debut composing and performing on a benchmark album for Hutcherson, "Head On^[2]" (on Blue Note Records) that featured a nineteen-piece ensemble. The recording was critically hailed as cross-pollinating the evolving contemporary modal jazz, avant-garde sound of the 1970s. Cochran’s first solo project "Worlds Around the Sun"^[2] became a #1 jazz album and marked his entree into the jazz discussion. From the mid-1970s forward Todd has experimented with and incorporated synthesizers, electronic and mixed-media concepts in his creative projects while collaborating with a wide range of artists in the genres of jazz, art rock, pop, R&B, and twenty-first-century classical.

Cochran's best-known jazz compositions^[3] include "At The Source" (Bobby Hutcherson), "Free Angela" (Bayeté Todd Cochran, Santana), "Eternal Worlds" Julian Priester, "My Pearl", "Geni-Geni" (Automatic Man), "Monte Carlo Nights" Grover Washington Jr., "Spanish Rose", "Back To Lovin' Again" (Freddie Hubbard), and "Secret Places" (Todd Cochran).

He released two albums on Prestige Records in 1972 and 1973.^[3] He was keyboardist and lead singer of Automatic Man from 1976 - 1978. He was also a member of Fuse One, a coalition of jazz musicians who released two albums on CTI Records in 1980 and 1981.^[2]