Jack Cooper (musician)

Early life, musical education and influences

Jack Cooper was born in Whittier, California on May 14, 1963, he was raised in nearby La Habra. He is the younger brother of artist and stylist Cathy Cooper and also the grandson (x4) of Mrs. Harriet Blanton Theobald, "Mother of Greenville." His mother, Georgie Cooper, was an accomplished classical pianist and he served as her page turner on piano and organ jobs. His father was an amateur clarinet and sax player who gave Cooper his first instruments. First musically inspired by clarinetist Artie Shaw at age eleven, he later was taken by Charlie Parker's playing on the alto sax from his dad's 78's; he took up the flute in college.

After graduating from Sonora High School and having first studied with Ernie Del Fante, Cooper attended Fullerton College where he studied composition and arranging with Tom Ranier and saxophone with Dave Edwards and Don Raffell (later studied with Peter Yellin in New York). While at Fullerton College he recorded on the Down Beat award winning LP, Time Tripping playing saxophone and woodwinds in FC's collegiate jazz groups. He later transferred to California State University, Los Angeles where he received a BA in Music education and clarinet in 1987 having studied with Vito Susca. Cooper also studied jazz composition with and was heavily influenced by Stan Kenton's former staff arranger Bob Curnow. "Since college, when I first began studying big band musical arrangements, (I) wanted to orchestrate for jazz ensembles." Two years later he completed a MA in composition at C.S.U.L.A. and had studied with Byong-Kon Kim, William H. Hill, and David Caffey. Cooper was classmates at C.S.U.L.A. and worked closely with both Eric "Bobo" Correa and Grammy winning trombonist Luis Bonilla. He has collaborated closely on several musical projects over the last 20 years with Bonilla with the most recent one being Mists: Charles Ives for Jazz Orchestra.

Later composition studies were with David Baker, Gerald Wilson, Manny Albam, Karl Korte, and Richard Lawn; in 1999 he earned a DMA in composition from the University of Texas at Austin.

His first notable professional work in Los Angeles as a multireedist was with the Kingsmen, Shari Lewis, Mateos Parseghian, the Tak Shindo Orchestra, Si Zentner, Steve Jam, the Dive, and the Last Mile.

Armed forces and the West Point Jazz Knights

At age 25 (in 1989) Jack Cooper won an audition to work as a saxophonist and staff arranger for the United States Army Jazz Knights stationed at West Point, 40 minutes north of New York City. For 6 years he toured, performed, and recorded extensively with the West Point Band's musical group to include A&E television appearances at the Hatch Memorial Shell with the Boston Pops, jazz festivals across the Northeastern United States, backing entertainers and jazz artists such as Bob Newhart, Lee Greenwood, Pete Yellin, Chris Vadala, Byron Stripling, and playing on and writing for demos and studio recordings. He participated in the funeral of former President Richard M. Nixon in April 1994; he was awarded the Army Commendation and Achievement medals while also rising to the rank of staff sergeant.

During this period in New York through 1995 he worked extensively backing other entertainers and artists such as Tony Martin, The Lettermen, Clint Holmes, Fred Travalena, Dennis Wolfberg, and worked as arranger and saxophonist for 3 years with the band Alma Latina. A notable work Cooper composed during this time was the jazz ensemble commission Double Helix which has been heard world wide as media and television music.

As instrumentalist

Cooper has played woodwind instruments professionally since the 1980s. His work includes backing Jennifer Holiday, Kenny Rogers, Macy Gray, Manhattan Transfer, Glen Campbell, Mitch Ryder (and Detroit Wheels) and playing woodwinds on national tours for the Producers, Sweet Charity, and A Chorus Line among many others. He is known primarily as a "lead alto player," a role he has played for the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, the Guy Lombardo Orchestra, the Temptations and the CD Coming Through Slaughter: The Bolden Legend. He has also been a featured guest artist/soloist at the Western States Jazz Festival, the Birmingham International Jazz and Blues Festival (U.K.), the 45th International Horn Symposium, and the Festival Virtuosi (2007) in Recife, Brazil.

Cooper has been a featured artist and soloist with the Hot Springs Festival Orchestra, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, the IRIS Symphony Orchestra, and as chamber soloist internationally. He is amongst a small group of musicians who have a playing career being able to cross over from jazz to classical to pop on several woodwind instruments.

As composer (highlights)

Cooper has served as a composer and arranger on more than 150 works since first writing music in the early 1980s, including solo instrumental pieces all the way through full symphonic works for orchestra and singers. His writing style has been described as "propulsive and sassy on an initial listen, revealing subtle shadings and intricate nuances upon repeated listening. I might have guessed Don Sebesky...on a blindfold test."

He was hired in 1992 as a staff arranger for Columbia Pictures Publishing/Belwin; his television and media music writing credits include The Jenny Jones Show, Danish Radio 2 (DR P2), E! Entertainment shows, Access Hollywood, JBVO: Your All Request Cartoon Show, American Restoration, Deal or No Deal, and Extra. His music has been featured at numerous venues around the world to include the North Sea Jazz Festival and the Montreux Jazz Festival.

Since December 1998 he has been the musical director, composer and chief arranger for the Jazz Orchestra of the Delta; in 2003 they produced the CD Big Band Reflections of Cole Porter featuring Cooper's original compositions and arrangements. Singer Sandra Dudley is utilized as the primary singer for the group. The CD includes commissions he had written for Gary Foster and Peter Erskine; Marvin Stamm serves as the guest soloist on this release. He also serves as the musical director and chief arranger for Kathy Kosins and her show Rhapsody in Boop.

Serving as both composer and musical director, in February 2006 Cooper collaborated with choreographer Mark Godden to produce the ballet Two Jubilees commissioned by and for Ballet Memphis. His musical influence on the ballet as composer and musical director was praised: critic Christopher Blank commented, "...if one were to consider a title that better unified the program's two very different ballets, a fitting substitute would be 'Jazz Orchestra of the Delta,' or even just the word 'Cooper.' Performing live for the dancers, the excellent 17-piece ensemble founded by Jack Cooper...was a marvelous treat midway through the ballet's (sic) season..."

Though his catalogue has a great deal of varied music, his work emphasizes the big band genre. His big band writing has been featured with many groups internationally on the professional and educational levels, "...this style of jazz music (sic) is my wheel house of expertise." Two definitive CDs were recorded in 2014 that exemplify Cooper's adeptness as a jazz orchestra composer and arranger: Mists: Charles Ives for Jazz Orchestra and Time Within Itself. Both are recognized internationally as exceptional examples of contemporary, progressive big band composition and orchestration. All About Jazz reviewer C. Michael Bailey notes about the Time Within Itself recording, "...Cooper is a star here in the same way that arrangers were in 1949 on Miles Davis' Birth of the Cool Recordings.

Chamber and solo works

His Sonata for Trombone was commissioned in 1997 by the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity at the University of Texas at Austin. This work has been widely performed and recorded by trombone artists including Luis Bonilla, Mark Hetzler, Tom Brantley, Lance Green, Chris Buckholtz, and Michael Davidson (among others). The work is recorded on two highly acclaimed recordings for Centaur Records and Summit Records.

A review of Sonata for Alto Saxophone described it as belonging with "such landmark 'jazz/classical' pieces as the Phil Woods Sonata, on any recital or concert program that explores (both) these worlds." The work was commissioned by Paul Haar and first premiered in July 2000 at the 12th World Saxophone Congress in Montreal, Canada.

One of the Missing – for those lost in Iraq for euphonium was commissioned in 2007 and premiered in 2008. It is a protest piece that shows the composer's anti-war stance against the Iraq War; the title is taken from the anti-war/Civil War short story and film adaptation of Ambrose Bierce. The work was also used on the soundtrack of a 2011 Canadian television film broadcast on the Vision network.

Berlin, Germany, 2015/2017

From June 2015 through August 2016 Cooper resided in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf borough of Berlin, Germany and continues to commute between the U.S. and Germany and makes his home in both Schöneberg, Berlin and Memphis, Tennessee. He served as a staff arranger, musical director and production assistant for Marc Secara and the Berlin Jazz Orchestra and the Young Voices Brandenburg for live performances and recording sessions. He also assisted in arranging for the Collegium musicum Potsdam Symphony Orchestra and the Compass Big Band. Cooper has conducted music and performed in venues of Berlin such at the Wühlmäuse Theater, Heimathafen Neukölln and Kunstfabrik Schlot. He also served as a Visiting professor and Artist-in-residence at the SRH Hochschule der populären Künste. He has worked closely with German jazz, pop and Schlager personalities such as Marc Secara, Jiggs Whigham and Marc Marshall. Further premieres of "Songs of Berlin" project were at the three-day music festival "Werder klingt" celebrating the 700th anniversary of the city of Werder (Havel) on March 10, 2017.

Awards and special recognition

Jack Cooper is the 2010 recipient of the Distinguished Achievement in the Creative Arts Award from the UMAA. He was chosen in 2003 as a nominee for the annual NARAS Premier Player Awards and also was awarded a $10,000 grant from the Aaron Copland Fund Recording Program that same year. He is also the recipient of numerous ASCAP composer awards since 1996. As a presenter he has been honored as the key-note speaker for the Modern Language Association, scholar and main presenter for four different National Endowment for the Humanities series on American Music, and the Hawaii International Conference on Arts & Humanities.

Teaching and education career

Jack Cooper has been teaching at the collegiate level for over the past 18 years. Before his appointment to the University of Memphis as director of jazz studies 1998, he had taught privately and worked as a clinician for the U.S. Army Jazz Knights. He has served as an invited clinician, guest artist, and conductor in Recife (Brazil), Birmingham (U.K), Berlin Germany and Graz Austria. He has also served as for the Missouri All-State Collegiate Jazz Orchestra, the Tennessee All-State High School Jazz Ensemble, and the Arizona All-State High School Jazz Ensemble. He also serves as an educational clinician/artist for Alfred Music Publishing making appearances at state educational music conventions throughout the United States.

As composer/arranger/conductor/musical director

Books, educational media, articles as reviewer