Please mark your calendars for New Music Circle’s 59th Season finale concert…
Saturday, May 26th, 2018
7pm doors / 8pm concert
Off Broadway (map)
Cooper-Moore – self-built instruments, percussion, keyboards
Joshua Abrams – guimbri, upright bass
Hamid Drake – drums, percussion
As a composer, performer, instrument builder/designer, storyteller, teacher, mentor, and organizer, Cooper-Moore has been a major, if somewhat behind-the-scenes, catalyst in the world of creative music for over 40 years. As a child prodigy Cooper-Moore played piano in churches near his birthplace in the Piedmont region of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. His performance roots in the realm of avant jazz music date to the NYC Loft Jazz era in the early/mid-70s. His first fully committed jazz group was formed in 1970 – the collective trio Apogee with David S. Ware and drummer Marc Edwards. Sonny Rollins asked them to open for him at the Village Vanguard in 1973. It was not until the early 90s, when William Parker asked him to join his group In Order To Survive, that Cooper-Moore’s pianistic gifts were again regularly featured in the jazz context. Cooper-Moore’s creative life continues well-strong and unabated into the present day. He was the Lifetime Achievement Honoree at the 22nd iteration of Vision Festival, NYC 2017.
Joshua Abrams is a composer, bassist, and improviser. His early formative musical experiences include performing in a chamber group conducted by Earle Brown, and busking on the streets of Philadelphia as an original member of The Roots. Since the mid-1990s, Abrams has been a key figure in Chicago’s creative music communities and an international touring musician with artists across genres. In 2010, Abrams formed the project Natural Information Society (NIS), a group that creates long-form psychedelic environments that join the hypnotic qualities of the guimbri, a Gnawan lute, to a wide range of contemporary musics and methodologies including jazz, minimalism, and experimental rock.
Abrams has scored numerous feature films, including The Trials of Muhammad Ali (2013), and several projects with award-winning director Steve James: the films Abacus: Small Enough To Jail (2017), Life Itself (2014), The Interrupters (2011); and the documentary series America To Me (2018). Abrams’ collaborations with visual artists include projects and exhibitions with Lisa Alvarado, Theaster Gates, and Simon Starling.
Hamid Drake is an American jazz drummer and percussionist, living in Chicago, but spending a great deal of his time touring worldwide. Drake is widely regarded as one of the great percussionists in jazz and improvised music, with a uniquely poetic approach to drumming; he draws from Afro-Cuban, Indian and African percussion instruments and influences. His musical involvements date back to 1974 when he began working with the AACM and felt impelled to explore earlier forms of drumming. He soon began working with several of the greatest innovators in jazz at the time: Don Cherry, Pharoah Sanders, and Peter Brötzmann. In live settings he continually takes collaborators to higher rhythmic levels, while at the same time carving out space for his own explorations. For over 30 years he has remained one of the most consistently venturesome and compelling drummers of his time.
