Specs was the first black staff musician hired byCBS in 1943. Born inNew York City, he started on piano but became exclusively a drummer in the late 1930s. He worked with Edgar Hayes (1939),Benny Carter (1941–42), andBen Webster. He played percussion on theEd Sullivan Show in the early 1960s and remained active professionally until the 1970s. At some point in the early 1960s he approached the Latin percussion makerMartin Cohen and had Cohen make for him an early (perhaps the first)bongo stand.[1] In 2004 he was inducted into the Big Band Jazz Hall of Fame.
^Mattingly, Rick."Hall of Fame - Martin Cohen".Percussion Arts Society.As word spread about the quality of Cohen's bongos, he was approached by Specs Powell, a CBS staff drummer. Powell wanted a pair of bongos, but he wanted them mounted on a stand. "I said, 'You can't play bongos on a stand,' because nobody in the Latin scene played them on a stand," Cohen says. "But he was insistent, so I devised a bongo mounting bracket that didn't require drilling a hole through the bongo."
