Cooper-Moore

Pianist, composer, and instrument builder Cooper Moore is a highly regarded vanguard jazz pianist and percussionist who emerged from the fertile New York loft scene of the 1970s. While attending Berklee School of Music, he began working with saxophonist David S. Ware in Apogee. He didn't issue a recording under his own name until the 21st century, but amassed a formidable catalogue as a session player with William Parker, Bill Cole, Darius Jones, Butch Morris and others. His debut album, Deep In The Neighborhood Of History And Influence, appeared 2001. The solo Cooper-Moore appeared in 2008. He played on Ware's final album, Planetary Unknown, in 2011. Amid session and live work with Parker and others, he issued 2019's three-disc, Cooper​-​Moore Sessions with Mad King Edmund, and the trio offerings Exultations and In The Swarm, with Brandon Seabrook and Gerald Cleaver. Two years later he collaborated on Heart Trio with Parker and drummer Hamid Drake. Born Gene Y. Ashton in Loudon County, Virginia in 1946, Moore (aka Cooper-Moore) began playing piano around age eight and was soon performing at church and various local functions. Inspired early on by the work of artists like Ahmad Jamal, Jaki Byard, and Charles Mingus, Moore began pursuing his interest in jazz. In 1967 he moved to Boston, where he studied at the Berklee College of Music. It was during his time in Boston that he first met saxophonist David S. Ware. Together, they formed the progressive Apogee trio and began performing around the city. By 1973, Moore and Ware had moved to New York City, where they lived in a collective house on Canal Street, sharing the space with such similarly inclined contemporaries as Alan Braufman, Jimmy Hopps, Tom Bruno, and Ellen Christi. In 1975, Moore made his recorded debut on Braufman's Valley of Search album. Also during this period, he began building his own instruments, including xylophones, banjos, and harps, utilizing found pieces of wood and metal. By the mid-'70s, however, Moore had returned to Virginia, where he raised his family, continued to build instruments, and worked for a time as a teacher. It would be a decade before he returned to New York, having changed his name to Cooper Moore. By the early '90s, he was once again an established performer on the avant-garde scene, working steadily with artists like Ware, bassist William Parker, multi-instrumentalist Bill Cole, and drummer Susie Ibarra. He made his solo recorded debut with 2000's Deep in the Neighborhood of History and Influence, a live album recorded at The Pizza Joint in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. He also formed the Triptych Myth trio with bassist Tom Abbs and drummer Chad Taylor, releasing a self-titled album in 2003, followed by The Beautiful in 2005. From there, he collaborated with Assif Tsahar on several albums, including 2005's Tells Untold and 2006's Lost Brother. Cooper-Moore reunited with saxophonist Ware and bassist Parker, and drummer Muhammad Ali, for 2011's Planetary Unknown,one of his last albums with Ware, who died from complications of kidney failure in 2012. More albums with Parker followed, including 2015's For Those Who Are, Still, 2016's 2016's Stan's Hat Flapping in the Wind and 2017's Meditation / Resurrection. In 2018, the pianist and saxophonist Stephen Gauci released the duo offering Conversations. Two years later he rejoined Braufman on The Fire Still Burns, and Exhultations alongside drummer Gerald Cleaver and guitarist Brandon Seabrook; in 2021 he played piano with Parker on the box set, Freedom - The Music Of William Parker: Migration Of Silence Into And Out Of The Tone World (Volumes 1–10). 2022 saw him reprise his dialogue with Gauci on Conversations, Vol. 2, and in 2023 he replaced pianist Matthew Shipp on the second volume of Francisco Mela's Music Frees Our Souls. The following year, Cooper-Moore, Parker, and drummer / percussionist Hamid Drake, issued Heart Trio for Aum Fidelity. ~ Matt Collar, Rovi