Their son Denardo, born in 1956, began drumming with his father while still a child and devoted his adult life to collaborating with both parents in their respective careers.
"[3] Early exposure to the recordings of Bessie Smith instilled in Cortez a deeply etched sense of female identity, which, combined with a strong will, shaped her into an uncommonly outspoken individual.
She became transformed by the sounds of Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and no-nonsense vocalist Dinah Washington, whose visceral approach to self-expression clearly encouraged the poet not to pull any punches.
Those with whom she identified included Langston Hughes, Aimé Césaire, Léon Damas, Christopher Okigbo, Henry Dumas, Amiri Baraka, and Richard Wright.
Cortez delivered her poetry backed by an electro-funk modern jazz group called the Firespitters, built around a core of guitarist Bern Nix, bassist Al McDowell, and drummer Denardo Coleman.
These include: "I See Chano Pozo," a joyously evocative salute to Dizzy Gillespie's legendary Cuban percussionist (whom she saw at a concert in Wrigley Field, Los Angeles, when she was 14);[12] a searing indictment of patriarchal violence called "If the Drum Is a Woman",[13] and "US/Nigerian Relations", which consists of the sentence "They want the oil/but they don't want the people" chanted dervish-like over an escalating, electrified free jazz blowout.
Recorded in 1986, her next album, Maintain Control, is especially memorable for Ornette Coleman's profoundly emotive saxophone on "No Simple Explanations", the unsettling "Deadly Radiation Blues", and the harshly gyrating "Economic Love Song", which is another of her tantrum-like repetition rituals, this time built around the words "Military spending, huge profits and death."
In 1996, her album Taking the Blues Back Home was released on Harmolodic/Verve; Borders of Disorderly Time, which appeared in 2002, featured guest artists Bobby Bradford, Ron Carter, and James Blood Ulmer.
In some ways her confrontational political outspokenness and dead-serious cathartic performance technique place Cortez in league with Judith Malina and The Living Theater.
According to the online African-American Registry, "her ability to push the acceptable limits of expression to address issues of race, sex and homophobia place her in a category that few other women occupy.
"[15] In 1991, along with Ghanaian writer Ama Ata Aidoo, Cortez co-founded the Organization of Women Writers of Africa (OWWA),[16][17] and served as its president for many years thereafter, with board members including J. e. Franklin, Cheryll Y. Greene, Rashidah Ismaili, and Louise Meriwether, Maya Angelou, Rosamond S. King, Margaret Busby, Gabrielle Civil, Alexis De Veaux, LaTasha N. Diggs, Zetta Elliott, Donette Francis, Paula Giddings, Renée Larrier, Tess Onwueme, Coumba Touré, Maryse Condé, Nancy Morejón, and Sapphire.
[18] In 1997, OWAA organized at New York University "the first major international conference devoted to the evaluation and celebration of literature from around the world by women of African descent".
[25][26][27] A memorial celebration of her life, organised by her family on February 6, 2013, at the Cooper Union Foundation Building, included tributes by Amiri Baraka, Danny Glover, Robin Kelley, Genna Rae McNeil, Quincy Troupe, Steve Dalachinsky, George Campbell Jr., Eugene Redmond, Rashidah Ismaili, and Manthia Diawara, as well as musical contributions by Randy Weston, T. K. Blue and The Firespitters.
[29] In London, England, on July 19, 2013, a tribute event was held, with featured artists including John Agard, Jean "Binta" Breeze, Denardo Coleman, Zena Edwards,[30] Linton Kwesi Johnson, Grace Nichols, Deirdre Pascall, Keith Waithe, Margaret Busby, and others.