Jessie Allen Cooper

Jessie Allen Cooper: Sound Travels

by Jim Santella
May 2, 2004

With his smooth jazz originals, soprano saxophonist Jessie Allen Cooper rediscovers folk airs that recall the roots of Northern European classical music. His thin tone resembles that of a pennywhistle, and his accompaniment blends similar timbres in from all sides. Synthesizers create sheets of sound. Melodies float through the room, as a piper’s dreamy lyric would loll through the afternoon.

Then, suddenly and with the kind of change that requires a visual and aural double-take, Cooper trades ...