Mike Cooper - Black Flamingo '2023

Tracks list

Incomparable bluesman Mike Cooper marks over 50 years of deadly cool and
restless experimentation with a masterful melange of free jazz, Oceanic, and
Hawaiian inspirations in his umpteenth hallucinatory collage 

More than half a century since his 1969 debut, Mike Cooper’s music
remains strikingly fresh and in a timeline of its own on ‘Black
Flamingo’. The album’s vitality is largely due to Cooper’s
role as a consummate collaborator, as he weaves in a panoply of UK peers and
remote jams that harmonise with, as well as disrupt, his eternally imaginative
and innovative style.

Intensely tarry but starry-eyed sludge like ‘Black Flamingo’ rub
shoulders with cracking shots of noirish trap and slide guitar in ‘Beneath
The Waves’ and mind-bending collages of sampled chants with spooling
blues riffage on ‘The umbers - The Migrant Body Chorus Milan’, a
skyward paean ‘The Satellites Are Spinning’ and heavy-trampling
electro-dub noise in ‘Trancendence Dub’ that wouldn’t sound
out of place on an imaginary Bill Laswell and Muslimgauze jam. Seriously tell us
who else is making this sort of rudely disciplined racket at 80 years old?! The
definition of a living legend. 

“Featuring Geoff Hawkins on tenor sax. Our 60 year friendship goes back to
the 1960s and my first band The Blues Committee then on through the 1970s to
Trout Steel and the Machine Gun Company on the Dawn label meeting up again in
the mid 1990s on my Island Songs c.d. and more recently on Oceans Of Milk and
Treacle on Room40. His son Aaron Hawkins who I have known since he was born, is
now a prominent figure on the Bristol music scene in the UK joins us on tenor
saxophone as well. Elliott Sharp, guitarist, composer, improviser from the
Downtown New York music scene. We first played together in Rome many years ago.
Here on Black Flamingo Elliott plays bass clarinet. Jon Raskin, a founder member
of The Rova saxophone quartet based in California surprised me one night in
London by appearing in the audience at a folk club concert I gave. We also have
a duo collection together.

Scot Ray, slidationist; lap steel and pedal steel guitar visionary. We have
never met in the real(?) world, only on line. I am always seeking audacious
players of both those instruments and Scot is a true star. Check out his own
solo and other projects. Michael Thieke, a fellow part time Roman part time
Berliner member of the International Nothing (great name) brings peace on the
clarinet with breathy playing on this most beautiful of wind instruments. Viv
Corringham has shared her voice on many past musical roads with me from Greek
Rembetronika to an improvising trio with Lol Coxhill and Soundwalks in hills
around Hong Kong. Tim Hill on Baritone sax. We go back to my 1980’s in
Reading in the UK. Together we had Beating Time with Paul Burwell on drums and
Gary Jones on bass, both sadly gone now and Mayhem Quartet with Pat Thomas on
keys and Neil Palmer our improvising dj both happily still with us. Then we
started Trystero System which became a floating membership duo spanning several
years and has included both Viv Corringham and Pat Thomas with myself and
continues from time to time.

Lastly The Migrant School of Bodies Choir was the result of a workshop in Milan
for a performance/dance piece organised by choreographer/dancer Ariella Vidach.
The text is each member counting from one to 26 in their own language each one
starting to count after the neighbour had reached the number eight . Most of the
members were from Africa and shared no common African language. The rhythmic and
tonal variations set up an interesting shingling effect with the voices tumbling
over one another. Collaboration, improvisation, innovation was the theme, Sun Ra
socks and a Bflat hat was the key.”

Tracklist:
1.01 - Mike Cooper - Sun Ra Socks, and a B Flat Hat I (0:27)
1.02 - Mike Cooper - Black Flamingo (8:29)
1.03 - Mike Cooper - Incandescent Gamelanations (6:18)
1.04 - Mike Cooper - Sun Ra Socks, and a B Flat Hat II (0:51)
1.05 - Mike Cooper - The Possibility Of Rain (3:00)
1.06 - Mike Cooper - Sun Ra Socks, and a B Flat Hat III (0:34)
1.07 - Mike Cooper - A Lemon Fell (3:37)
1.08 - Mike Cooper - Beneath These Waves (5:44)
1.09 - Mike Cooper - Sun Ra Socks, and a B Flat Hat IV (0:33)
1.10 - Mike Cooper - The Numbers - The Migrant Body Chorus Milan (3:58)
1.11 - Mike Cooper - The Satellites Are Spinning (5:25)
1.12 - Mike Cooper - Sun Ra Socks, and a B Flat Hat V (0:25)
1.13 - Mike Cooper - Trancendence Dub (4:42)
1.14 - Mike Cooper - Luciernaga (4:06)
1.15 - Mike Cooper - Sun Ra Socks, and a B Flat Hat VI (2:28)

Related artists