Michael Cooke

The multi-instrumentalist Michael Cooke is a composer of Jazz and Classical music. This two time Emmy and Louis Armstrong Jazz Award winner plays a variety of instruments, you will hear him play soprano, alto & tenor sax, flute, soprano & bass clarinet, bassoon and percussion. Michael started playing jazz in High school where he played for homeless shelters in Atlanta. A cum laude music graduate University of North Texas, Michael has played in Europe, Mexico and all over the United States. After relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area, he has been exploring new styles and has been studying Larry Ochs “Radar” composition techniques. Denise Berardini of the San Francisco Beacon describes Michael's “talented sax flowing out color and tone with such feeling I haven’t heard in quite a while. Michael plays with such dimension and flavor, that it sets (his) sound apart from the rest.” Uncompromising, fiery, complex, passionate, and cathartic is how the All Music Guide labeled Michael’s playing on Searching by Cooke Quartet, Statements by Michael Cooke and The Is by CKW Trio. His latest release, an indefinite suspension of the possible explores new paths mixing a variety of styles and techniques drawing upon the inspiration and creative energy of multi-cultural and diverse music from around the world and from inside and outside the American and European jazz and avant-garde traditions.

Michael's new ensemble, the Cooke Quintet is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and draws upon the inspiration and creative energy of multi-cultural and diverse music from around the world and from inside and outside the American and European jazz and avant- garde traditions. CQ's approach to acoustic jazz allows for a new freedom of emotional expression. Combining solid grooves with bursts of energy and sound, Cooke Quintet's music reminds a listener of the work of contemporaries such as Ken Vandermark, Ken Simon, or Elliot Levin. The instrumentation of CQ, however, presents a fresh twist on the classic jazz quintet - woodwinds, trombone, cello, koto and percussion can be heard interacting here. Additionally, modern forms for improvisation, such as circle music and pan-rhythmic pulse signatures, are center points for spontaneous inventions. Together, these five musicians collaborate in ways that might best and simply be described as "improvised group music."

The CKW Trio, has an approach to acoustic post-modern Jazz allows for a freedom of emotional expression. With solid grooves and explosions of energy and sound, CKW Trio's music reminds one of the music being played by Ken Vandermark, and John Zorn's Masada.

The instrumentation is similar to Julius Hemphill's trio, woodwinds, cello and percussion. CKW trio plays in a free jazz style and experiments with time and rhythm. They use 21st century forms like circle music and use various non- western scales as central points for launching improvisations. This adventure in jazz is created by the unique sounds and ideas of the members of the group. Show less