Hypnotic Brass Ensemble is an eight-piece, Chicago-based brass ensemble consisting of eight sons of the jazz trumpeter Phil Cohran. [1] Their musical style ranges from hip hop to jazz to funk and rock, including calypso and gypsy music. They call their eclectic blend of sound "now music", or "Hypnotic". Reared in the teachings of music since they were children, they grew up on the stage playing as the "Phil Cohran Youth Ensemble".
The brothers were raised in a house where music was a constant element of the household. Phil Cohran's "Circle of Sound" held rehearsals in the living room and put on live shows in the adjacent loft/theatre called the "Sun Ark". The brothers were obligated to wake at 6am and play their horns before and after school. As adolescents, they played around Chicago as the Phil Cohran Youth Ensemble, performing for the likes of Harold Washington, Nelson Mandela, and other prominent figures of the day.
As the brothers grew into high school, many of them set their horns aside for a while. Enduring the deaths of close friends and family, including brother Anthony Neal, close friend Robert Lock (for whom they later wrote a song entitled "Flipside"), and Level Todd (for whom their song "Todd" was written), they decided to pick their horns back up. In 1999, the brothers took to the subways of Chicago and presented their music. Shortly after, they formed a fully-fledged, eight-piece brass ensemble and by 2004 recorded their first project, Flipside. [2] They moved to New York City in 2006. [1] [ page needed ]
They have performed with Mos Def, Aquilla Sadalla, Phil Cohran, The Recipe, Nomadic Massive, Tony Allen, Wu Tang Clan, De La Soul, Prince, Femi Kuti, Gorillaz, The B-52's, and at the North Sea Jazz Festival. They have recorded with names ranging from Snoop Dogg, Ben Billions Erykah Badu to RZA and Ghostface Killah of the Wu Tang Clan to BK-One to Childish Gambino to Maxwell. They supported Blur for their Hyde Park reunion concerts on 2–3 July 2009. They are also collaborators on a number of tracks from the third Gorillaz studio album, Plastic Beach . [3]
One of their songs "War" was featured in the box office smash film The Hunger Games as the theme song for the in-universe eponymous sport hosted by Caesar Flickerman, [1] [ page needed ] and on the soundtrack for season 4 of Fargo. It was sampled in "American Royalty" by Childish Gambino featuring RZA in the former's 2012 mixtape Royalty . They collaborated on tracks with the group Rocket Juice & the Moon, a project featuring Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz) on vocals/guitar/keyboard, Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers) on bass, and legendary Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen (Fela Kuti and many others) on the group's self-titled debut album. As part of independent label Jagjaguwar's 25th anniversary, the group performed a reimagined version of Sapphie by Richard Youngs alongside Moses Sumney, Perfume Genius, and Sharon Van Etten. [4]
| Year | Title | Label | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Flipside (aka Hypnotic Orange) | Independently released | CD-R |
| 2005 | Jupiter (aka Hypnotic Green) | Independently released | CD-R |
| 2006 | "Jupiter" b/w "Balicky Bon" | Pantone | 10" record |
| 2007 | "War" b/w "Mercury" | Pantone | 10" record |
| 2007 | New York City Live | Independently released | CD-R |
| 2007 | "Brass in Africa" b/w "Brass in Africa (Bulljun Remix)" | Handcuts | 7" record |
| 2007 | Sankofa (split with Salah Ragab and the Afro-Egyptian Ensemble) | Honest Jon's | LP |
| 2008 | The Brothas | released by Pheelco Entertainment | CD-R |
| 2009 | "Alyo" b/w "Flipside" | Honest Jon's | 10" record |
| 2009 | Hypnotic Brass Ensemble | Honest Jon's | CD and LP |
| 2010 | Heritage EP | ChoiceCuts | CD and 12" record |
| 2011 | Bulletproof Brass | Pheelco Entertainment Inc. | download/CD/LP |
| 2012 | "Kryptonite" (single) | Pheelco Entertainment Inc. | download |
| 2012 | Kelan Philip Cohran And The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble | Honest Jon's | CD |
| 2013 | Fly: The Customs Prelude | Pheelco Entertainment Inc. | download/CD |
| 2014 | "All In" (single) | Pheelco Entertainment Inc. | download |
| 2015 | "Straight Business" (single) | Pheelco Entertainment Inc. | download/CD |
| 2016 | Sound Rhythm & Form | Pheelco Entertainment Inc. | download |
| 2017 | Hypnotic Joints, Volume One | Pheelco Entertainment Inc. | download |
| 2017 | Book of Sound | Honest Jon's | CD and 2LP |
| 2020 | Bad Boys of Jazz | Fat Beats Records | LP |
| 2021 | This is a Mindfulness Drill | Jagjaguwar | LP |
A musical ensemble, also known as a music group or musical group, is a group of people who perform instrumental and/or vocal music, with the ensemble typically known by a distinct name. Some music ensembles consist solely of instrumentalists, such as the jazz quartet or the orchestra. Other music ensembles consist solely of singers, such as choirs and doo-wop groups. In both popular music and classical music, there are ensembles in which both instrumentalists and singers perform, such as the rock band or the Baroque chamber group for basso continuo and one or more singers. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles. Some ensembles blend the sounds of a variety of instrument families, such as the orchestra, which uses a string section, brass instruments, woodwinds, and percussion instruments, or the concert band, which uses brass, woodwinds, and percussion. In jazz ensembles or combos, the instruments typically include wind instruments, one or two chordal "comping" instruments, a bass instrument, and a drummer or percussionist. Jazz ensembles may be solely instrumental, or they may consist of a group of instruments accompanying one or more singers. In rock and pop ensembles, usually called rock bands or pop bands, there are usually guitars and keyboards, one or more singers, and a rhythm section made up of a bass guitar and drum kit.
Mark-Anthony Turnage is an English composer of contemporary classical music.
Roscoe Mitchell is an American composer, jazz instrumentalist, and educator, known for being "a technically superb – if idiosyncratic – saxophonist". The Penguin Guide to Jazz described him as "one of the key figures" in avant-garde jazz; All About Jazz stated in 2004 that he had been "at the forefront of modern music" for more than 35 years. Critic Jon Pareles in The New York Times has mentioned that Mitchell "qualifies as an iconoclast". In addition to his own work as a bandleader, Mitchell is known for cofounding the Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).
The Canadian Brass is a Canadian brass quintet formed in 1970 in Toronto, Ontario, by Charles Daellenbach (tuba) and Gene Watts (trombone), with horn player Graeme Page and trumpeters Stuart Laughton and Bill Phillips completing the quintet. As of August 2023, Daellenbach is the sole original member in the group, with the other members being trumpeters Joe Burgstaller and Mikio Sasaki, hornist Jeff Nelsen, and trombonist Keith Dyrda.
A quintet is a group containing five members. It is commonly associated with musical groups, such as a string quintet, or a group of five singers, but can be applied to any situation where five similar or related objects are considered a single unit.
Kelan Phil Cohran was a jazz musician. He was best known for playing trumpet in the Sun Ra Arkestra in Chicago from 1959 to 1961, and for his involvement in the foundation of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).
The Preservation Hall Jazz Band is a New Orleans jazz band founded in New Orleans by tuba player Allan Jaffe in the early 1960s. The band derives its name from Preservation Hall in the French Quarter. In 2005, the Hall's doors were closed for a period of time due to Hurricane Katrina, but the band continued to tour.
Banda is a subgenre of regional Mexican music and type of ensemble in which wind and percussion instruments are performed.
A brass band is a musical ensemble generally consisting primarily of brass instruments, most often with a percussion section. Ensembles that include brass and woodwind instruments can in certain traditions also be termed brass bands, but may be more correctly termed military bands, concert bands, or "brass and reed" bands.
Raymond Wilding-White ; was an American composer of contemporary classical music and electronic music, and a photographer/digital artist.
Angels and Demons at Play is a jazz album by Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra.
David C. Sampson is an American contemporary classical composer.
The brass section of the orchestra, concert band, and jazz ensemble consist of brass instruments, and is one of the main sections in all three ensembles. The British-style brass band contains only brass and percussion instruments.
The University of North Florida School of Music is the music department of the University of North Florida, and one of the institution's flagship programs. Part of UNF's College of Arts and Sciences, it offers seven programs of study, the most noted of which is the jazz studies program, founded by the jazz euphonium player Rich Matteson in 1987. The department has several ensembles, including the Jazz Ensemble 1, which has performed at jazz festivals across the United States and internationally and has won several awards and been recognized in Down Beat Magazine, Cadence, and the Jazz Times.
Live at the 6th Tokyo Music Joy is a live album by the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Lester Bowie's Brass Fantasy recorded in February 1990 for the Japanese DIW label. It is the only recording to showcase both of the groups that Lester Bowie established and features performances by the Art Ensemble, the Brass Fantasy and both bands.
Song of the New World is a 1973 album by jazz pianist McCoy Tyner, his fourth to be released on the Milestone label. It was recorded in April 1973 and features performances by Tyner with a big band including saxophonist Sonny Fortune, flautist Hubert Laws, bassist Joony Booth and drummer Alphonse Mouzon along with a brass section, and a full string section on two tracks conducted by William Fischer.
The trumpet repertoire consists of solo literature and orchestral or, more commonly, band parts written for the trumpet. Tracings its origins to 1500 BC, the trumpet is a musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family.
Fate in a Pleasant Mood is an album by the American jazz musician Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra recorded in Chicago, mid 1960 and originally released on his own Saturn label in 1965. The album was reissued by Impulse! in 1974, and by Evidence in 1993. For the latter reissue, the record was included as the first half of a CD that also featured the whole of When Sun Comes Out, an album recorded by the Arkestra in New York, 1963.
Brass Shout is an album by trumpeter Art Farmer, featuring a brass ensemble arranged and conducted by Benny Golson. Recorded in 1959, the album was originally released on the United Artists label.
Bruce Purse is an American musician, composer, producer, vocalist, bandleader, arranger, performer, music educator, and guest lecturer. Proficient at various wind instruments, including the trumpet, pocket trumpet, bass trumpet, and flugelhorn, Purse has performed with many well known artists, such as Lester Bowie, Amy Winehouse, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys, Faith Evans, Nas, Leona Lewis, and Johnny Kemp. He has also assembled large ensembles from a 11-piece bands to 30 piece orchestras, including his premiere ensemble called Bruce Purse and the Pocketbooks. The band performs originals in various genres such as; jazz, reggae, R&B, and heavy blues.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
