Tom Cora | |
|---|---|
 Cora at theMoers Jazz Festival, 1997 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | Thomas Henry Corra (1953-09-14)September 14, 1953 Yancey Mills, Virginia, U.S. |
| Died | April 9, 1998(1998-04-09) (aged 44) Draguignan, France |
| Genres | Jazz,avant-rock,experimental,free improvisation |
| Occupations | Musician, composer |
| Instrument | Cello |
| Years active | 1979–1998 |
| Labels | No Man's Land, Sound Aspects |
| Formerly of | Skeleton Crew,The Ex,Curlew,Third Person, Roof |
Thomas Henry Corra (September 14, 1953 – April 9, 1998), better known asTom Cora, was an American cellist and composer, best known for hisimprovisational performances in the field ofexperimentaljazz androck. He recorded withJohn Zorn,Butch Morris, andthe Ex, and was a member ofCurlew,Third Person andSkeleton Crew.
Tom Cora was born inYancey Mills, Virginia, United States. He made his musical debut as drummer on a local television program and in the mid-1970s he played guitar for a Washington, D.C.jazz clubhouse band. He took up the cello while an undergraduate at theUniversity of Virginia and studied with cellistPablo Casals' studentLuis Garcia-Renart and later withvibraphonistKarl Berger. During this time he formed his own group, the Moose Skowron Tuned Metal Ensemble and began constructing instruments for it.
In 1979 Cora moved to New York City, where he worked withShockabilly guitaristEugene Chadbourne, introducing the cello to thehonky tonk circuits of North America. He performed atimprovising clubs and venues in New York withJohn Zorn,Fred Frith,Andrea Centazzo,Butch Morris,Wayne Horvitz,David Moss,Toshinori Kondo and others. Cora also collaborated withGeorge Cartwright andBill Laswell which led to the formation of theart rock bandCurlew in 1979. Cora remained with Curlew for over ten years and appeared on five of their albums.
In 1982 Tom Cora and Fred Frith formedSkeleton Crew, an improvisingrock andjazz band best known for their live performances where they played various instruments simultaneously. Cora and Frith were eachone-man bands on stage and for their act, Cora constructed musical contraptions he could play with his feet. The band existed for five years during which time they toured Europe, North America and Japan extensively. They made two studio albums,Learn to Talk (1984) andThe Country of Blinds (1986), the latter withZeena Parkins who had joined the band in 1984. In October 1983 Skeleton Crew joinedDuck and Cover, a commission from theBerlin Jazz Festival, for a performance inWest Berlin, followed by another in February 1984 inEast Berlin.
Cora was also a member of the improvising trioThird Person, formed in 1990 as a live collaboration with percussionistSamm Bennett and a "third person" who changed from concert to concert. Two CDs of some of their performances were released,The Bends in 1991 (with "third persons"Don Byron, George Cartwright, Chris Cochrane,Nic Collins,Catherine Jauniaux,Myra Melford, Zeena Parkins, andMarc Ribot) andLuck Water in 1995 (with "third person"Kazutoki Umezu).
Cora performed with a number of other bands, includingNimal withMomo Rossel andpost-rockquartetRoof. In 1990, he played two concerts with Dutchanarcho-punk band,the Ex, and the success of this collaboration resulted in Cora performing hundreds of concerts with the Ex and appearing on two of their CDs. In 1995 in The Netherlands, Cora and Frith collaborated, as Skeleton Crew, onEtymology, a CD-ROM sound sample library of sonic sounds and wire manipulations.
Tom Cora died ofmelanoma at the age of 44 in a hospital in the south of France, where he lived with his wife, singer Catherine Jauniaux, and their son, Elia Corra.[1][2]
A month after Cora's death, abenefit concert in aid of his family was held at theKnitting Factory with appearances by Catherine Jauniaux, Fred Frith, George Cartwright, Zeena Parkins and others. A CD of this concert,It's a Brand New Day – Live at the Knitting Factory, produced by John Zorn, was released onKnitting Factory Records in 2000. But the good intentions of all concerned were never realised when Knitting Factory Records was bought out and Jauniaux received no royalties from the sale of the CD.[2]
John Zorn also compiledHallelujah, Anyway – Remembering Tom Cora, a two-CD set featuring a selection of recordings by Cora and some of the groups he recorded with, plus new recordings of Cora's compositions.
Cora appeared in Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel's 1990 documentary film on Fred Frith,Step Across the Border, in which Cora and Frith are filmed rehearsing atThe Kitchen, New York City in February 1989.
In addition to performing with other bands and musicians, Cora began a solo concert career in 1986. The prospect of managing a concert-length performance single-handedly was a challenge with risks, but he learned to balance risk with intention and the results were solo performances across North America, Europe and Japan. Two live albums from some of these performances were released in 1987 and 1991.
While in The Netherlands, Cora spent two months atSTEIM, theelectro-acoustic research centre inAmsterdam, where he tailored a livesampling and triggering system to be played with his feet. He unveiled the system in a 25 concert solo tour in 1992. Unfortunately, the unique tailor-made instrument constructed at STEIM was later lost, forgotten on a train from Neuchâtel to La Chaux-de-Fonds while touring Switzerland.
Besides performing, Cora composed music for theNational Film Board of Canada, choreographerDonna Uchizono (for which he received a New York Dance and Performance Award in 1990), and a solo cello film score forDziga Vertov's,Man with the Movie Camera, commissioned by theAmerican Museum of the Moving Image. In 1994 Cora was awarded a Meet the Composer Commissioning Grant to compose an ensemble score forMan with the Movie Camera. It was performed at several North American venues and in Europe in 1996.
Tom Cora's cello wasprepared,electronically modified and highlyamplified. He developed the style of playing sawed chords and percussive riffs as if his cello was an electric guitar. He banged, scraped and twisted it and did whatever else was necessary to produce the sounds he wanted.
Cora explored non-idiomatic improvising and studied Turkish andEastern Europeanfolk music. The influence of this folk music is evident in much of his work. Skeleton Crew once devoted an entire concert to playing only Eastern European folk tunes.
On the stage, his presence was striking. Ed Baxter noted in his biography of Tom Cora:[3]
With his saturnine good looks and gaunt demeanour, he brought a hint of American Gothic to the ever-shifting cartoon soundtrack of the downtown scene. Poised over his instrument and more often than not with all four limbs busy playing something, his was a compelling stage presence.
Solo
Curlew
Skeleton Crew
The Ex
Roof
Third Person
With others
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
