Phil Cohran

Phil Cohran (* Oxford, MS, 8. Mai 1927)

Cohrans Musik ist eine grossartige Entdeckung für mich, ich kannte bisher kaum etwas von ihm, habe vor ein paar Tagen die CD „The Spanish Suite“ (Katalyst, rec. 1968, gemäss Discogs 2009 erschienen, keine Angaben auf der CD oder dem Cover) erhalten und heute auch noch „Philip Cohran and the Artistic Heritage Ensemble“ aka „On the Beach“ (in der limitierten CD-Ausgabe von Aestuarium Records, erschienen 2001 – das Album erschien ursprünglich auf Zulu Records im Jahr 1967). Ich bin von der Musik begeistert!

Diesen Thread hätte wohl an sich redbeans starten müssen, aber meine Begeisterung ist derzeit schlichtweg zu gross, als dass ich mich zurückhalten könnte!

Grossartige Musik zwischen Sun Ra, James Brown, Earth Wind & Fire und der AACM. Die beiden anderen CDs („The Malcolm X Memorial“ und „Armageddon“) sollten unterwegs sein, beim Herumsuchen habe ich noch gesehen, dass es eine „Singles“ CD gibt, ebenso wie eine 3x7inch namens „The Zulu 45s Collection“, die sich zum grossen Teil überschneiden (die Vinyl-Box enthält den Spencer Jackson Family-Track „Ain´t Nobody Gonna Treat Us Like They Used to Do“, der auf der CD fehlt, die CD enthält dafür „El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz“ und „Detroit Red“, die im Vinyl-Set fehlen – Discogs-Infos für die LP und die CD).

Kelan Phil Cohran’s 45 Years of Contributions to Chicago’s Cultural Community

Harpist, corninest, shaman, educator, health care advocate, instrument inventor (Frankiphone), violin uke, activist, and father.
Co founded the AACM (Advanced Association of Creative Musicians)
1961-62 implemented dietary & hair changes to reflect African consciousness
Urban Gateways—African American music lecture series
Lyrics of Sunshine & Shadows—with Oscar Brown, 21 Paul Lawrence Dunbar poems set to music for the express purpose of redefining the African-American dialect. (Accepted as the first public school performances series viewed by 250,000 CPS children at the Museum of Science and Industry 3 other public schools series—1. The Magic of Music (summer of 67), 2. Affro 3. DuSable of She Cha Go (69).
Cultural Explosion On the Beach Program facilitated with Betty Montgomery (drew 2,000 people to the Lakefront on the weekends)
Affro-Arts Theater—first cultural house for the development of Black Culture Artistic Heritage Ensemble
December 69 launched the first Kwanzaa celebration in Chicago (large scale impact on national celebration of Kwanzaa)
Taught first Music theory classes at Malcolm X Community College
Introduced cultivation workshops in the county jails provided awards for poetry
Taught at Dwight and Pontiac Department of Corrections
Reach Out Program with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Transitions East—Health Food Store
Black Musicians Workshops
Director of Artists for Washington (performed 35 events to elect Harold Washington for Mayor of Chicago*1 event raised $1,000,000 called the Winner’s Circle
10 years of service at Corliss High School
Multi-Cultural Ensemble Co director with Dr. Sin-Yan Shen
1985 Duke Ellington Classics at the Chicago Jazz Festival
1988 Tribute to Sun Ra Chicago Jazz Festival
Black Cultural Celebrations at the Field Museum & Daley Center, 89 Honored at Howard University Melanin Conference (1990 Dallas, 1991 L.A., 92 Seattle, 94-04 Detroit)
Curator of special lectures for the Adler Planetarium (Benjamin Bannaker, Slavery and Astronomy, A Tribute to Sun Ra, and Metamorphosis: A History of Jazz).
Composer for „African Skies“ ran for 10 years at the Adler Planetarium
Eternal Sound Family—free music lessons for youth at Apostolic Methodist Church
Artist in Residence Great Black Music Project, Northeastern Illinois University Jacob Carruthers Center (greatblackmusicproject.org)
Numerous TV & radio interviews to define Black culture & music
Made in Chicago Jazz Series Recipient Tribute to Sun Ra

Twa Ze Ma Pu (Lavon Pettis)

gefunden hier:
http://freeform.org/music/c/Philip_Cohran.html

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Luckily, Cohran found a group of musicians who shared his respect and admiration for tradition, but who knew it so well that they could take it into rarely explored realms of trance and freedom. Musicians from the Chess Records session group – tuba player Aaron Dodd, bassist Louis Satterfield, saxophonist Donald Myrick, trumpet player Charles Handy, drummer Bob Crowder and guitarist Pete Cosey – joined The Artistic Heritage Ensemble in the summer of 1967, when the group was playing on the shores of Lake Michigan. „Before that, no one played in the park,“ Cohran says of that time. „We’d have a parade once a year or a band playing for a special group, but no one played in the parks for the general public before this grant we got from a sister named Betty Montgomery. She secured a grant from a wealthy man to have art exhibitions on the lakefront in an old boathouse that wasn’t being used. So they brought together sculptors, writers, poets, dancers, painters and musicians and I had the music. It was next to Lake Shore Drive, so people would drive by and hear this strange music because we weren’t playing like other people, and they would hear the thumb piano and the zithers, so they would come back and check us out. At our last performance we had 3000 people, so that place was just run over, and that’s where we got established. […]“

Peter Shapiro: „Blues and the Abstract Truth“, in: The Wire, N° 207, May 2001
komplett nachzulesen auf Cohrans Website:
http://www.philcohran.com/pc_wr_fr.htm

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Excerpts from Gloria Peace Show interview with Phil Cohran, Chicago, 2001:
http://vimeo.com/959689

Phil Cohran über seine Zeit mit Sun Ra:
http://www.vimeo.com/1415164

Dankesrede für eine Auszeichnung:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XWYuBrBNsE
DuSable Museum, Chicago

„Live with the Jazzcat“ (KRML Radio-Show von LeRoy Downs)
http://www.thejazzcat.net/2008/08/19/kelan-philip-cohran-and-leroy-downs-on-live-withthe-jazzcat/

Interview, Mule Magazine No. 4 (2008):
http://issuu.com/mulemagazine/docs/mule_magazine_4/15

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Sun Ra and his Arkestra, Chicago, c. 1960. (left to right: Ricky Murray, John Gilmore, Ronnie Boykins, Sun Ra, Phil Cohran, Jon Hardy, Marshall Allen) Collection of the Chicago Jazz Archive, Special Collections Research Center and University of Chicago Library. Photo by Charles Shabacon (Quelle)

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Downbeat, Dec. 1984 (by J.B. Figi):

„He left in 1961. Gilmore came by and said, ‚Man, we’re gettin‘ ready to go to New York. We need you to go with us.‘ Sun Ra’s music was so great. He removed all the borders in my mind. He moved you so powerful and generated such a response in people that I knew I wanted to do that on my own. That’s the reason I didn’t go with him.

„So I stayed here and became a recluse. I started walking the streets in my GI clothes, let my hair and beard grow out. My mother thought I lost my mind. But I just got serious and started working seven days a week on music, at least 16 hours a day. I made the Frankiphone (an amplified thumb-piano, named after his mother) and some other instruments.

„Around April 1965, I ran into Steve McCall and Muhal walking down Cottage Grove, by the cemetery. We talked about how everybody had gone to new York and there was nobody around here and nothing happening. So we said, ‚Man, we ought to do something about this ourselves. We’ll just get together. You call all the guys you know, send them a card; I’ll take the guys I know.‘ I had a place at 740 East 75th Street, and it had a large living room. So everybody met there on May 8, that was a Saturday. And that was the first AACM meeting.“

The Artistic Heritage Ensemble, which Cohran put together at that time, was one of the best received of the early AACM groups. „A year before that, I had a rehearsal group, but that’s all that it was because I didn’t think that the music I was writing would be accepted for 10 to 12 years. That first concert, when we got a standing ovation, I was really shocked.“ But differing philosophies drove Cohran from the AACM tent. „Everybody wanted to play OUT, see. My nature wanted me to go somewhere else. I’m not a spaceman; I’m an earthman. We always had a very strong rhythmic foundation and sound centers, and we always knew where we were going.“

Den ganzen Text gibt’s hier:
http://www.philcohran.com/pc_db_fr.htm

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Die neuste Scheibe, „African Skies“ (aufgenommen 1993), erschien 2009 unter dem Titel „Kelan Phil Cohran and Legacy“ bei Captcha Records auf CD und LP:
http://hbsp-2x.com/artwork/1876642_KELAN_PHIL_COHRAN_AND_LEGACY.html
http://hbsp-2x.com/artwork/719813_KELAN_PHIL_COHRAN_AND_LEGACY.html

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Hörproben auf Youtube, alle jüngeren Datums:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNPsZCVAFgk
Caro d’Offay Gallery, Chicago (2007)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9wyQOnCj00
Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago (December 2006)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMLRsVk_X7Y
Phil Cohran in der Show „Chic-A-Go-Go“ (Infos)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdkInMQsyX0
Los Angeles (30. Juli 2005)

Es gibt auf Youtube auch Stücke von Cohrans Alben, aber da ich nicht weiss, ob man die in Deutschland sehen darf, lass ich Euch selber Links klicken…

Zuletzt hier noch ein Stück des Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, der tollen Band, die aus diversen (acht, neun?) Söhnen von Cohran besteht:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opFUN-DbPM4
Irgendwo müsste ich den Radio-Mitschnitt ihres Auftrittes am Festival in Sant’Anna Arresi 2009 haben, falls Interesse besteht. Sie haben auch mit Phil Cohran gespielt:
http://vimeo.com/3339094
Phil Cohran & Hypnotic Brass Ensemble – Paris, Festival „Sons d’Hiver“ 2009

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Die Diskographie, soweit ich sie überblicke:

On the Beach
Zulu Records, 1967
CD-Reissues 2001 Aestuarium, 2007 Katalys / LP-Reissue: 2006 Aestuarium
Beide CD-Ausgaben enthalten zwei Bonustracks: „New Frankiphone Blues“ und „Unity (live 1968)“. Anscheinend ist Aaron Dodd (tuba) nur auf dem letzteren zu hören, in den Kommentaren der Aestuarium-CD (sie scheinen von Cohran zu stammen) heisst es, er habe bei den Aufnahmen ncht dabei sein können. (Dodd spielt übrigens später mit Maurice White und in den 90ern mit der Chicagoer Band 8 Bold Souls. Hier gibt’s einen Nachruf.)

The Malcolm X Memorial (A Tribute in Music)
Zulu Records (1968)
LP: Mississippi Records (2007) / CD: Katalyst (2006)
(Ursprünglich auf Zulu Records – Scans bei Discogs)

The Spanish Suite (Maretina, Delores, & Marguirite)
rec. live Feb. 1968, Afro Arts Theatre at 3900 S. Drexel, Chicago, IL
LP: Tizona (2011?) / CD: Katalyst (2009)
(Anscheinend erstmals 2009 veröffentlicht.)

Armageddon
(conceived in 1958, written down in 1963, performed/recorded in 1968)
rec. live Feb. 11, 1968, Afro Arts Theatre at 3900 S. Drexel, Chicago, IL
LP: Tizona (2011) / CD: Katalyst (2010)
Anscheinend erstmals 2010 veröffentlicht.

African Skies
Captcha Records (rec 1993 / LP & CD 2009)
Ist mir nicht klar, ob’s die Scheibe 1993 schon mal gab oder nicht, vermutlich eher nicht.
Die CD-Ausgabe enthält den Bonustrack „Blue Nile“.

:: mit Sun Ra ::

Alben:
Angels and Demons at Play
We Travel the Spaceways
Rocket Number Nine (später: Interstellar Low Ways)
Fate in a Pleasant Mood
Holiday for Soul Dance
When Sun Comes Out Vol. 2 (?)

Single:
The Blue Set b/w Big City Blues

(Quelle: http://homepage.uab.edu/moudry/discintr.htm)

:: Compilations ::

Singles
CD: Midday Music (2007)

The Zulu 45s Collection
3×7″: Jazzman (2010)

Links:
http://www.tizonarecords.com/
http://katalystentertainment.com/