Cooper-Moore is a composer-improviser, instrumentalist, designer and builder of musical instruments, and music educator, living and working in New York City. A native of the Piedmont area of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, Cooper-Moore began studying piano at age eight. Four years later, he was listening to the musics of Thelonius Monk, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, and working on improvisation.

He earned a B.A. in Music Education from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. and later studied composition-arranging at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA

Moving to New York in 1973, Cooper-Moore leased the five-floor 501 Canal Street building and transformed it into an artist live-in/work space, making possible numerous experimentations between performing and visual artists.

While his attention was focused on piano performance in New York clubs and touring abroad, Cooper-Moore began designing and building musical instruments and played them in collaboration with all kinds of artist at lofts, galleries, artist spaces, museums, and in the streets of New York City.

He has over the years built an extensive instrument collection, using such material as paper, bamboo, metal, wood, and acrylic. He most often performs with his ashimba (a type of xylophone), bass diddly-bow, horizontal hoe-handle harp, three stringed fretless banjo, and electric mouth bow. His instruments have been exhibited at the Thread Waxing Gallery, NYC, and The Goddard Riverside Community Center, NYC.

Cooper-Moore leads a choral ensemble called Voices. He has performed in the bands of Vincent Chancey, Dr. Bill Cole, Joseph Daley, Tiye Giraud, Joseph Jarman, Masahiko Kono, Diedre Murray, William Parker, Perry Robinson, Susie Ibarra, Warren Smith and Butch Morris; with the dance companies of Jill Becker and Dancers, Robin Becker, Forces of Nature, Anita Gonzales, Elizabeth Gottlieb, Koo Dance, Movin Spirits Dance Theater and Joan Miller's Dance Players.

He has recorded with Dr. Bill Cole, Susie Ibarra, William Parker, David S. Ware, Steve Swell, Alan Braufman, and the George Carver Band.

His solo piano CD, COOPER-MOORE PIANO SOLO Live at Guelph, Deep in the Neighborhood of History and Influence, recorded live at the Guelph, Ontario Jazz Festival 1999, can be heard on Hopscotch Recordings, Brooklyn, NY.

His performance, A MINDSET, resulting from a Diverse Forums Grant, was presented by Dance Theater Workshop in 1992. This was a work comparing the criminal justice and the social welfare systems in America.

Other noted projects include his collaboration with ecologist and coordinator of the first Earth Day, Sam Love, on their work, Visions of Tomorrow. This show toured one hundred college campuses in 44 states. There was the year long exploration with book and paper artist Susan Share on her Unfolded Worlds, his work with Moving Spirits Dance Theater, and his present collaboration in the experimental improvisational instrumental trio, Triptych Myth.

His teaching and workshop experiences include seven years as a music therapist at the Harlem Interfaith Counseling Service in NYC, and five years at the Wolf Trap Foundation in Virginia where he developed methods for using music to teach subjects in Headstart classrooms. His innovative approaches were recognized by National Headstart which hired him to help reproduce his work across America.

Cooper-Moore has a teaching association with The New School for Social Research, Jazz Department.

Bassist, tubist and improviser Tom Abbs has been performing and recording in a variety of contexts (classical, rock, jazz, and improvised musics) since age eleven. Tom started his musical training at the age of seven playing piano. A couple of years later he changed his instrument to cello and by the time he was eleven he was playing the bass. He was handed a tuba in seventh grade and his conquest of the "low end" began. Tom went on in his teens to win accolades in state and national competitions for his work as a soloist and ensemble player.

He came to New York in 1991 to attend the New School’s Jazz and Contemporary Music program where he studied with such masters as Reggie Workman, Buster Williams, Joe Chambers, Brian Smith, Junior Mance, Arnie lawrence, Chico Hamilton and Arthur Taylor. By the end of his third semester at the New School Tom was playing gigs every night of the week and made the decision to leave school and concentrate on performing. He has been working steadily ever since.

In the past decade Tom has developed a driving percussive style on the bass that encompasses the deep emotion and grit of Charles Mingus and Jimmy Garrison while showing the dexterity and inventiveness of Scott La Faro. His fluid tuba style has shed many of the instrument’s sluggish connotations and transformed it into a soaring solo and sharply percussive groove machine. Equally comfortable in "free" and "inside" settings, Abbs' versatility and depth as a player has kept him busy backing up the likes of Lawrence "Butch" Morris, Charles Gayle, Daniel Carter, Cooper-Moore, Steve Swell, Roy Campbell Jr., Sabir Mateen, Ori Kaplan, Jemeel Moondoc, Assif Tahar, Borah Bergman, Billy Bang, Andrew Lamb, Warren Smith and many others. Tom is currently a member of the collective groups, The Transcendentalists, Dichotomy with Okkyung Lee and the experimental improvisational trio, Triptych Myth.

Tom is the founder and driving force behind the arts coalition Jump Arts (http://jumparts.org), which since its 1997 inception has presented over 150 performances and educational workshops in New York City. Jump Arts is dedicated to creating viable opportunities for revolutionary artists of different generations, backgrounds, and experiences with a strong focus on emerging artists.

Tom has taught music through the New York City Parks Department, Columbia University’s Greenhouse Nursery School and currently teaches artist residencies in the New York Public Schools. He also presents a free outreach program through Jump Arts called “The Creative Sound Workshop” which incorporates musical story telling and hands-on learning.

http://TomAbbs.com

Chad Taylor was born in Tempe, Arizona on March 1973. In 1983 Chad moved to Chicago with his mother and sister where he started studying drums and guitar. While in high school Chad started performing gigs with Lin Holiday, Rob Mazurek, and Dennis Carrol. He also began studying jazz improvisation at the Bloom School of Jazz. In 1991 Chad went to Milikin University in Decatur, Illinois where he studied classical guitar. After one year at Milikin Chad decided that he’d rather pursue jazz drumming so he enrolled at the New School’s Jazz and Contemporary Music program in New York City where he studied with Reggie Workman, Joe Chambers, Billy Harper, Junior Mance, Arnie Lawrence, and Jackie Byard.

In 1997 Chad moved back to Chicago where he continued working with Rob Mazurek. Chad has performed professionally with Bobby Bradford, Derick Baily, Joe Mcphee, Peter Brotzman, Tom Abbs, Roy Campbell, Jemeel Moondoc, Roscoe Mitchel, Fred Anderson, Malichi Favors, Daniel Carter, Steve Swell, Joe Manieri, Eugene Chadbourne, Leroy Jenkins, William Parker, Rob Brown, David Boykins Cooper-Moore, J.D. Paran, John Zorn, Marc Ribot and many other extraordinary improvisers. Chad has also been a part of Chicago’s postrock scene where he has recorded or collaborated with Tortise, Isotope 217, Stereo Lab, Brokeback, Mouse on Mars, Sam Prekop, and Jim O'Rorke.

Chad is a member of the Chicago Underground Duo, Trio, Quartet and Orchestra and the experimental improvisational trio, Triptych Myth. Chad leads his own group called Active Ingredients, whose record “Titration” will be put out on Delmark records in the summer of 2003. Chad currently lives in New York City.