Jack Cooper (American musician)

Cooper has played woodwind instruments professionally since the 1980s. His work includes backing Jennifer Holliday, Lady Rizo, Kenny Rogers, Macy Gray, Manhattan Transfer, Glen Campbell, Mitch Ryder (and Detroit Wheels), Chris Stamey and playing woodwinds on national tours for the Producers, Sweet Charity, and A Chorus Line.[24] He has played in saxophone sections for the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, the Guy Lombardo Orchestra, the Temptations and on the CD Coming Through Slaughter: The Bolden Legend.[27][28][29] 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.[30][31][32][33] Also as a woodwind player, Cooper has been a featured classical artist and soloist with the Hot Springs Festival Orchestra, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, the IRIS Symphony Orchestra, and as a chamber soloist internationally.[34][35][36]

Cooper first writing music professionally in the early 1980s. He was first 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.[37][24] His music has been featured at numerous venues around the world to include the North Sea Jazz Festival and the Montreux Jazz Festival.[38] He is 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. He also serves as the musical director and chief arranger for Kathy Kosins and her show Rhapsody in Boop. In February 2006 Cooper collaborated with choreographer Mark Godden to produce the ballet Two Jubilees commissioned by and for Ballet Memphis.[24] His musical influence on the ballet gained critical acclaim.[18][39]

Though his catalogue has a great deal of varied music, his work emphasizes the big band genre.[18] 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."[23][40] 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.[41][42] Both are recognized internationally as exceptional examples of contemporary, progressive big band composition and orchestration.[43] As a staff composer and arranger, he is featured with the BBB featuring Bernie Dresel on their acclaimed 2022 CD The Pugilist.[44]

His Sonata for Trombone was commissioned in 1997 and has been widely performed and recorded by trombone artists including Mark Hetzler, Tom Brantley, Lance Green, Chris Buckholtz, and Michael Davidson (among others).[45] The work is recorded on two highly acclaimed recordings for Centaur Records and Summit Records. Cooper's 2nd Sonata for Trombone was completed in 2018 and recorded on the release Synthesis for SkyDeck Music. The Sonata for Alto Saxophone was commissioned for and first premiered in July 2000 at the 12th World Saxophone Congress in Montreal, Canada. It is described as belonging with "such landmark 'jazz/classical' pieces as the Phil Woods Sonata, on any recital or concert program that explores (both) these worlds."[46][47]

One of the Missing – for those lost in Iraq for euphonium was commissioned in 2007 and premiered in 2008.[48] 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.[49] The work was also used on the soundtrack of a 2011 Canadian television film broadcast on the Vision network.[50] Cooper's Violin Sonata was premiered on May 27, 2018 as part of the Barnstedter Kapellen Konserte series in Barnstedt, Germany; recording of the work for commercial release was on June 26/27 at Greve Studio in Berlin.[51][52]

Cooper preparing for recording session with Young Voices of Brandenburg, February 2016

From June 2015 through August 2016 Cooper resided full-time 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 serves as a staff arranger, musical director and production assistant for Marc Secara and the Berlin Jazz Orchestra for live performances and recording sessions.[53][54] He also assisted in arranging for the Collegium musicum Potsdam Symphony Orchestra and the Compass Big Band.[55][56][57] Cooper has conducted music and performed in venues such at the Wühlmäuse Theater, Heimathafen Neukölln and Kunstfabrik Schlot.[58] He also served as a Visiting professor and Artist-in-residence at the SRH Hochschule der populären Künste and is currently a visiting professor at the Universität Erfurt.[59][60] He has worked closely with German jazz, pop and Schlager personalities such as Marc Secara, Jiggs Whigham and Marc Marshall.[61][62][63][64] Since 2018, Cooper has collaborated with German, film documentary director Anne-Kathrin Peitz. He is featured on the award winning The Unanswered Ives documentary and is and also featured on the 2022 television documentary about the life and music of composer Paul Dessau.

Jack Cooper was named the Pearl Wales Professor of Music of the University of Memphis in August or 2020. He was also the 2020 recipient of the University of Memphis CCFA Dean's Creative Achievement Award and the 2010 recipient of the Distinguished Achievement in the Creative Arts Award from the UMAA.[65] 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 for Recording Program in 2003.[66][67] He is also the recipient of numerous ASCAP composer awards since 1996.[68] 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.[24]