Leah Gough-Cooper

Once more, itʼs been a rather long time since I last posted news on what Iʼm up to here. The last 6 months have been an exciting time, here in NYC. I wonʼt go into all the details of what I did, but along with settling into this city a little more, I had many great opportunities to perform frequently with the aforementioned groups and continue gaining experience at my internship!

So, whatʼs in store at the moment? Iʼm having the great privilege to perform with another wonderful singer, Allegra Levy, and her band this month, at a wonderful French Bistro in Brooklyn, and thereafter am hoping to continue working with these great bunch of musicians! Iʼm also continuing to book the odd gig with my own quartet, Human Equivalent (in its many shapes and forms), on a per monthly basis. Open invitation, however: feel free at any time to ask of my services! I am not bound to any one project and am always excited to work with new people and new/different music!

Iʼve been finding much inspiration in a couple of other areas this year.
At my internship, Iʼm finding myself gravitating a lot towards the Mixing/Audio and Sound Designing aspects there – my goal is to gather much more practice and experience in these fields, getting an even better grasp on the various software used in the industry and for my own projects, too.
With this, Iʼve begun to delve more into Electronic music, which has always been a genre that Iʼve gaped at in wonder and adoration from afar for years now. Like anything in the arts, it takes time, patience and practice to fully realize ideas (both sounds and composition/arranging) and understand the full potential of it all – itʼs also amazing in that itʼs a world where you really have to set your own limits as you go along and be really sure of what it is you want to produce, because the rabbit hole can go on and on and on…
In all honesty, itʼs been a while since Iʼve been this inspired and really determined to learn it. Funny how I canʼt seem to escape the educational (or, should I say, self-educational) bug, right…? It now feels like Iʼm ready to pursue this area after all thatʼs come beforehand!

So, as they say, please watch this space. Iʼm excited to go down this path and merge everything I learnt (theory, acoustical performance) with this new platform! Iʼm sure the outcome with be entertaining, at least…
In the meantime, the temperature has dropped here in NYC – hereʼs to making it through January with a warm heart…!
Check back in soon!

The Janus Quintet old/new line-up will be at the Jazz Bar, 1 Chambers Street, Edinburgh, UK, Wednesday, June 15th: Leah Gough-Cooper, compositions and alto sax, with Joe Wright on tenor sax, Steve Hamilton on piano, Mario Caribe on acoustic and electric bass, and Chris Wallace on drums. Doors at 8pm, music from 9pm to midnight.

Hello Folks!

Yes, I am ashamed to say it has been an awfully long time since I gave an update on my latest adventures, and to those of you who visit this website now and again, I apologise a trillion-fold! It’s been pretty much a year – I am a terrible person, I know…

This last year has been a bit of a trip, with some amazingly cool things happening, but also some big changes for myself and also my family and friends. I was going to go into enormous detail about it all, like a chapter from a book, but I decided against it for the meantime. I may publish it for public view in the near future, but for now I just want to let you all know of upcoming projects and other cool things that will be going down in the next few months!

Keep an eye out for my newest project and group, The Janus Quintet. Don’t worry – Human Equivalent are still in the stratosphere, but seeing as many of us will be moving in different directions over the course of the next year or so, I decided to take teeny-tiny break. Plus, I’ve been dabbling with a new instrumentation with this more recent project, incorporating tenor sax into the mix instead of guitar. I adore guitar. Timbre-wise, however, I’m finding some cool new sounds with a 2-horn line-up.
SO, Monday April 11th 2011, we will be performing at the New England Conservatory @ 8pm, in Brown Hall. It is in fact part of my Senior Graduate Recital (as part of my Masters) and will have 2 sets, one of which will have acoustic bass, the other electric.
Check out my gig schedule for the line-up – it’s going to be fantastic! I may even get some tracks recorded for your listening pleasure, if not for a newer release…!

So, what happens after school?
NYC, baby! Well, that’s the plan, anyway. I’m hoping to venture on down to the Big Apple, play plenty of music, perhaps even teach a little and live in the artist environment! I’m currently working a little with a fantastic piano player, Noah MacNeil, originally from the Mass. area. I was fortunate enough to gig with him in Harlem this past weekend at The Shrine and keep an eye out for Banda Magda, led by Greek Singer/Songwriter Magda Giannikou, and also another fantastic piano player, Yuki Shibata. These are sure to be (if not already) regular performers in the NYC scene.
I’m also doing some collaboration work (when we both get it fitted into our busy schedules) with Electronic artist Rudi Zygadlo. Again, did some Sax work on his last album and we’re hoping to do some live performances for a month or two this coming summer, back at home in the U.K., if not in Europe!

And lastly, keep an eye out for an emerging Company, Art Shape. Can’t go into too much more detail about it just now, but I will be most definitely filling you in on it all when the Company takes off and what I’ll be doing as part of it…!

Right, better be off to a rehearsal! I shall back for more updates and maybe some backstory for the past year very, very soon! X

好的節慶絕對不會孤單，總能引起四方共鳴。今年邁向第十八屆的嘉義市國際管樂節，有來自美國、日本、 泰國、新加坡、內蒙古等五國10隊的國外樂團前來共襄盛舉。其中，來自美國的美國類人樂團Human Equivalent Band，更是為了參與今年的嘉義市國際管樂節特別號召來七位自美國、蘇格蘭、南美洲的阿魯巴及智利等四個國家的管樂傑出好手，所組成的一個精兵管樂團。 嘉義管樂節跨海來台在1/1音樂廳，以及1/2中正公園的二場精采演出，讓嘉義市民欣賞到絕佳的管樂美聲。

2007年夏天，美國類人樂團 Human Equivalent Band由目前就讀Berklee College of Music(美國波士頓的音樂學院)身懷音樂絕技的高材生所組成的樂團。薩克斯風樂手首兼作曲家的Leah Gough-Cooper歷經童年時期爵士、搖滾、嘻哈、放克的淬練，在進入美國波士頓的音樂學院兩年後，即開始為樂團創作，直到現在，他仍不斷挑戰各團 員的演奏技能，以及自我的音樂創作極限。

「類人」樂團演奏的風格，既含括沙發音樂及放克的元素，同時也兼有成熟的扎帕風(Zappa)， 團員們洋溢的音樂才華，在他們百分百的演奏默契中充分地流露。而類人樂團的演奏風格，也受到不同演奏風格的音樂家含括Herbie Hancock到The Weather Report，以及前衛派的Frank Zappa所影響，再經過團員們的吸收並重新創作詮釋後，成為美國類人樂團自身獨樹一格的演出新風格。樂團在探尋爵士樂的路上，以一種激進兼具實驗性的方 式，作為他們詮釋心中音樂風貌的表演形式，在創新與顛覆的音樂演出中，也不失對傳統音樂的堅持與喜愛。

原為五部爵士樂團，Human Equivalent:EAST則是特別為嘉義國際管樂節組成的樂團，每個團員都曾與爵士大師如Terri Lyne Carrington，Fred Wesley，Randal Corsen及Barry Eastmond合演過，樂手來自世界各地：蘇格蘭的薩克斯風樂手Leah Gough-Cooper，來自南美洲自治國阿魯巴的電吉他手Serghio Jansen，以及智利的貝斯手Martin Nessi，各個樂手都有著令人拍手叫絕的拿手演奏本領。

鼓手Massimo Buonanno (曾與Freda Goodlet 及 John Mayer合作)、鋼琴手Chad Selph，小號Vivek Patel (Alex Brown, Paquito DRivera), 打擊樂Arturo Pena (Orquestra Bacharengue)。

開春不可不聽的跨越國界的管樂好旋律。一起聆聽美國類人樂團以他們前衛不失傳統，搖滾不失純真，爵士中帶著個性的管樂合奏，隨著來自世界不同國家的年輕音樂好手，用充滿朝氣與能量的氣勢，以好音樂迎接新的一年。(本文引自嘉義市府消息)

http://sixstar.cca.gov.tw/blog/A600019/myBlogArticleAction.do?method=doListArticleByPk&articleId=7282

Since we were about 3 years old, me and my friend Rudi have been good mates. Musically, we’ve always been interested in the forward-looking waves of the contemporary. I guess you could say I took more of purely instrumental route, whilst he delved into the treasurehouse of the electronic realm. Since he began, I’ve always had an ear open to what he does and it looks like now, his shining hour has arrived. Picked up by record label Planet Mu (http://www.planet-mu.com/news) earlier this year, Rudi set out to produce tune-upon-tune of whole Electro-bliss and create his current album Great Western Laymen.

Rudi’s work was recently featured on a couple of Radio 1 shows, including Mary Anne Hobbs’ early, early morning Experimental Show. You can hear me featured on the tune Missa Per Brevis (which was also featured on the show – ace!). You can check out his work at the following: www.myspace.com/rudizygadlo