Kenwood Dennard

Kenwood Marshall Dennard (born March 1, 1956, New York City) is an American jazz drummer. Dennard learned piano as a child and took up drumming at nine years of age. He attended the Manhattan School of Music from 1972 to 1973 and Berklee College of Music from 1973 to 1976. Later in the decade he worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Pat Martino, High Life and Brand X. He played with Martino again in the late 1980s and with The Manhattan Transfer, Dianne Reeves, Jaco Pastorius, Lew Soloff, Bob Moses, and Stanley Jordan during that decade. In the 1990s he worked with Miles Davis, Maceo Parker, Quincy Jones, and Howard Johnson. He also led his own ensembles, including Just Advance, the Meta-Funk All Stars, and Quintessence; his sidemen have included Victor Bailey, Dave Bargeron, Hiram Bullock, Stanton Davis, Marcus Miller, and Herman Wright Jr.. In 1999 he began teaching at Berklee.