Phil Cohran was born eighty-five years ago in Mississippi. He grew up in St Louis, post-war home of jazz stalwarts like Clark Terry and Oliver Nelson (both of whom he played with), not to mention a genius called Miles Davis. In 1950 Cohran moved to Kansas City, where he played trumpet in one of the hardest swing-groups, Jay McShann's, touring proto-rock’n’roll with the likes of Big Mama Thornton. And Cohran led his own group, the Rajas Of Swing, spivved up in red jackets, grey slacks, blue suede shoes and turbans.
Then in the mid-50s he moved to Chicago. He had a small group with John Gilmore; in 1959 he was invited to join Sun Ra’s Arkestra. “With Sunny”, Cohran simply says, “I found my own voice”; and you can hear its emergence on Angels And Demons At Play, recorded in 1960, where Cohran’s zither is the magic ingredient of tracks like Music From The World Tomorrow.
When Sun Ra moved east in 1961, Cohran stayed in Chicago, founding the Affro-Arts Theater, and recording with the Artistic Heritage Ensemble for his own Zulu Records. The AACM had its first meeting in Cohran’s front room. With Oscar Brown Jr and Gene Page he wrote and performed in a show commemorating the nineteenth-century Afro-American poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar. He taught music tirelessly in schools and prisons.
He also raised a large family: eight of them are the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. For each of them, their first teacher was their father, who famously insisted on giving them music lessons not just for several hours after school, but for several hours before school as well. Their father’s music was all around them as children; they all vividly remember lying in bed at night not being able to sleep because their father was rehearsing with the Jazz Workshop downstairs.
For the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, the voyage to where they are now has been fuelled by their father's teaching, by the example of his life, and abo.......
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Phil Cohran to sędziwy już trębacz urodzony w 1927 r.w Mississippi. W latach pięćdziesiątych dwudziestego wieku grał na trąbce w zepole Jaya McShanna oraz w wojskowej orkiestrze US Navy. W 1959 r. John Gilmore zaprosil go do grupy samego Sun Ra. Potem grywał w wielu kapelach i wydał kilku albumów.

A jego synowie założyli... Hypnotic Brass Ensemble!

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble tworzy ośmiu braci z Chicago, synów Philipa Cohrana. Bracia początkowo zaczęli słuchać rapu, ale korzenie jazzowe w nich pozostały. W połowie lat 90-tych zaczęli grać własne utwory na ulicach Chicago jako Brass Ensemble. Słowo „Hypnotic” dodali do nazwy po pewnym incydencie. Otóż pewnego dnia, kiedy grali na peronie chicagowskiej kolei, pewien mężczyzna w garniturze przysłuchiwał się ich popisom, a jego kolejne pociągi odjeżdżały. Później podszedł do nich i powiedział "Po prostu zahipnotyzowaliście mnie".



Phil Cohran was born eighty-five years ago in Mississippi. He grew up in St Louis, post-war home of jazz stalwarts like Clark Terry and Oliver Nelson (both of whom he played with), not to mention a genius called Miles Davis. In 1950 Cohran moved to Kansas City, where he played trumpet in one of the hardest swing-groups, Jay McShann's, touring proto-rock’n’roll with the likes of Big Mama Thornton. And Cohran led his own group, the Rajas Of Swing, spivved up in red jackets, grey slacks, blue suede shoes and turbans.
Then in the mid-50s he moved to Chicago. He had a small group with John Gilmore; in 1959 he was invited to join Sun Ra’s Arkestra. “With Sunny”, Cohran simply says, “I found my own voice”; and you can hear its emergence on Angels And Demons At Play, recorded in 1960, where Cohran’s zither is the magic ingredient of tracks like Music From The World Tomorrow.
When Sun Ra moved east in 1961, Cohran stayed in Chicago, founding the Affro-Arts Theater, and rec.......
more