Though not often listed with the other ground breakers of free percussion — Murray, Graves, Ali etc. — Jerome Cooper is every bit as forward looking. His resume includes stints with Anthony Braxton and Cecil Taylor, as well as filling the throne for The Revolutionary Ensemble. Here we find Cooper playing solo during two concerts recorded 29 years apart, utilizing drums, balaphone, chirimia and Yamaha PSR 1500 — all at the same time.
"Root Assumptions", the oldest track here, dates from 1978. Cooper released an album by the same name that year, but I'm not sure if this is the same recording or not. In any event, it's a spirited rhythmic/melodic workout for bass drum, high hat and balaphone. The interest here lies in the woody sound of the African xlyphone, as well as the shifting rhythmic accents. If you think playing these two instruments at the same time is tricky, just wait.
"A Melody" is a slow, atmospheric 10 minutes in which the drummer introduces his arsenal. Bowed cymbals and sampled strings hover as eventually a simple bass line enters, and we get the full effect of Cooper's one-man band. "My Birds" is a sort of call and response, melodic splotch thing. And it does resemble bird-song. "3 is to 1 as 4 is to 2" is a head-solo-head arrangement in two different time signatures simultaneously. Nutty.
"Munich" opens with a fanfare of strings and chirimia (a kind of South American oboe) with orchestral high hat splashes. In some odd way it reminds me of those early '80's Jon Hassell records, but without the hazy, heard through the fog feel. As it progresses, we get bass drum explosions, and muted piano chords leading to a (sampled) bass and balaphone exploration that quickly amps up into a quick-step, with an occasional vocal utterance.
The final tour de force is a wonder. "For the People-In Fear-In Sorrow" again starts with a sort of fanfare with explosions of drum and cymbal. During the first 5 minutes or so, the seemingly disparate pieces slowly start to come together and gain rhythmic cohesion. A short drum break signals a fast calypso beat, Cooper for once playing his whole kit, or is it sampled? Big cymbal splashes rise and fall with the beat. Then the whole thing speeds up incredibly for a while before settling back into a nice loping feel, with solo drumming atop the beat the whole time. Tubular bell arpeggios herald a freer section, before the string-stab rhythm returns and everything starts to level out. It doesn't resemble a band so much as a live tape collage, and it would be an interesting and provocative piece of music even if it wasn't all being played by one guy in real time.
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