Cooper-Moore

• Name — Cooper-Moore • Landscape — yes • Birth Name — Gene Y. Ashton • Born — August 31, 1946 • Birthplace — Loudoun County, Virginia, U.S. • Genre — Free jazz Improvisational music • Instrument — piano, organ, horizontal hoe-handle harp, flute, fife, percussion, ashimba, twanger, three stringed fretless banjo, diddley-bow, mouthbow, TeZe • Associated Acts — Digital Primitives Trio • Website — https: coopermooremusic.com/home • Illustration — Aarhus (Denmark 2023)

At age 12, Cooper-Moore was recruited by community leaders to be the piano player for the town, and soon thereafter performed at church services and community functions. This is also the age when he heard musicians such as Ahmad Jamal and Charles Mingus, and was inspired to pursue jazz. He has cited pianist Jaki Byard's contributions to Mingus' band as a particular inspiration. He moved to Boston in 1967 to briefly attend Berklee College of Music. In Boston he connected with many musicians, some of whom became longtime collaborators, notably saxophonist David S. Ware, drummer Marc Edwards, Cleve Pozar, and Juma Santos. In 1970, he formed a collective trio, Apogee, with Ware and Edwards.

In 1973, the trio of Cooper-Moore, David S. Ware, and Marc Edwards moved to New York City and established a living and performance space at 501 Canal Street, which served as a home base for musicians including Ware, Alan Michael Braufman, Jimmy Hopps, Tom Bruno, and Ellen Christi. Cooper-Moore's first commercial recording appearance was on Braufman's Valley of Search LP, released by India Navigation. Encouraged by Jimmy Hopps, Cooper-Moore began to design and build instruments, beginning with an ashimba, an 11-note xylophone made from discarded wood. In 1975, he returned to Virginia with his family. There he worked with bands from a variety of genres, continued to further develop an array of handmade instruments, and worked as an educator with the Head Start program. Upon his return to New York City in 1985, he changed his name to Cooper-Moore, derived from the surnames of his grandmothers. Cooper-Moore has performed and recorded with William Parker's In Order to Survive and Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra and Bill Cole's Untempered Ensemble. He established, recorded, and toured with Triptych Myth, a piano trio with Tom Abbs and Chad Taylor. He has recorded and toured extensively with Digital Primitives, a trio with Chad Taylor and Assif Tsahar. He has also collaborated with Daniel Carter in Parker's Organic Trio. He performs solo on piano and handcrafted instruments, with the Cooper-Moore Trio with Brian Price and Pascal Niggenkemper, and in Gerald Cleaver's Black Host. He has performed at the Whitney Museum of American Art, in a piano duo with John Blum in 1996, and a solo performance in conjunction with the Blues for Smoke exhibit in 2013. Outside of the jazz world, he has composed music for theater, including Rita Dove's "The Darker Side of the Earth" at the Guthrie Theater, "Feathers at the Flame" by Laurie Carlos at The Kitchen, and "A Still Life" by Emily Mann. He has worked with dance troupes such as the Joan Miller Dance Players, Rod Rogers Dance Company, Marlies Yearby's Movin' Spirits Dance Theater, Koo Dance, and Judith Jackson. He has scored and composed music for movies, including Central Park: The People's Place and Fireflies in the Abyss. He has worked with lyricists such as Laurie Carlos, Fred L. Price, Carl Hancock Rux, and Arthur T. Wilson. In the 1990s he was the resident storyteller at Prospect Park in Brooklyn. He has toured extensively in Europe as well as the United States. Among the many instruments Cooper-Moore has built are a diddley-bow, a three-string fretless banjo, and a mouth bow. Cooper-Moore received the Lifetime Achievement award at the 2017 Vision Festival in New York City. Cooper-Moore has said, "I have taken stuff out a dumpster to make an instrument which I have used at gigs. If you put me somewhere, and I had to play and didn't have an instrument, I'd get everything I needed and make an instrument within a few hours."