Lou Hooper

Last updated

Louis Stanley Hooper (May 18, 1894, North Buxton, Ontario - September 17, 1977, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island) was a Canadian jazz pianist.

Hooper was raised in Ypsilanti, Michigan and attended the Detroit Conservatory, where he played locally in dance orchestras in the 1910s. He then moved to New York City around 1920; he recorded with Elmer Snowden and Bob Fuller frequently in the middle of the decade, and performed with both of them in Harlem as well as with other ensembles. Hooper served for some time as the house pianist for Ajax Records and accompanied many blues singers on record, including Martha Copeland, Rosa Henderson, Lizzie Miles, Monette Moore, and Ethel Waters. He participated in the Blackbirds revue of 1928.

In 1932, Hooper returned to Canada, where he played in Mynie Sutton's dance band, the Canadian Ambassadors. He did local work solo and in ensembles for the next two decades, then was brought back into the limelight by the Montreal Vintage Music Society in 1962. Hooper released an LP of ragtime piano tunes in 1973 entitled Lou Hooper, Piano. He taught at the University of Prince Edward Island late in his life and appeared regularly on CBC television in Halifax.

His papers, which include unpublished compositions and an autobiography, are now held at the National Library of Canada [1] in Ottawa, Ontario.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oscar Peterson</span> Canadian jazz pianist (1925–2007)

Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was a Canadian virtuoso jazz pianist and composer. Considered one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, Peterson released more than 200 recordings, won eight Grammy Awards, as well as a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy, and received numerous other awards and honours. He played thousands of concerts worldwide in a career lasting more than 60 years. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, simply "O.P." by his friends, and informally in the jazz community as "the King of inside swing".

Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a music genre that had its peak from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott Joplin, James Scott and Joseph Lamb. Ragtime pieces are typically composed for and performed on piano, though the genre has been adapted for a variety of instruments and styles. "Maple Leaf Rag", "The Entertainer", "Fig Leaf Rag", "Frog Legs Rag", and "Sensation Rag" are among the most popular songs of the genre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duke Ellington</span> American jazz pianist and composer (1899–1974)

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cecil Taylor</span> American jazz pianist and poet (1929–2018)

Cecil Percival Taylor was an American pianist and poet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James P. Johnson</span> American pianist and composer

James Price Johnson was an American pianist and composer. A pioneer of stride piano, he was one of the most important pianists in the early era of recording, and like Jelly Roll Morton, one of the key figures in the evolution of ragtime into what was eventually called jazz. Johnson was a major influence on Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, and Fats Waller, who was his student.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stride (music)</span> Style of jazz piano music

Stride jazz piano, often shortened to stride, is a jazz piano style that arose from ragtime players. Prominent stride pianists include James P. Johnson, Willie "the Lion" Smith, Fats Waller, Luckey Roberts, Mrs Mills and Mary Lou Williams.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Lou Williams</span> American jazz pianist and composer (1910–1981)

Mary Lou Williams was an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records. Williams wrote and arranged for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, and she was friend, mentor, and teacher to Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Tadd Dameron, Bud Powell, and Dizzy Gillespie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis Moreau Gottschalk</span> American composer and pianist (1829–1869)

Louis Moreau Gottschalk was an American composer and pianist, best known as a virtuoso performer of his own romantic piano works. He spent most of his working career outside the United States.

The swing era was the period (1933–1947) when big band swing music was the most popular music in the United States. Though this was its most popular period, the music had actually been around since the late 1920s and early 1930s, being played by black bands led by such artists as Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Bennie Moten, Cab Calloway, Earl Hines, and Fletcher Henderson, and white bands from the 1920s led by the likes of Jean Goldkette, Russ Morgan and Isham Jones. An early milestone in the era was from "the King of Swing" Benny Goodman's performance at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles on August 21, 1935, bringing the music to the rest of the country. The 1930s also became the era of other great soloists: the tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and Lester Young; the alto saxophonists Benny Carter and Johnny Hodges; the drummers Chick Webb, Gene Krupa, Jo Jones and Sid Catlett; the pianists Fats Waller and Teddy Wilson; the trumpeters Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, Bunny Berigan, and Rex Stewart.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. C. Heard</span> American drummer

James Charles Heard was an American swing, bop, and blues drummer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Bley</span> Canadian jazz pianist

Paul Bley, CM was a jazz pianist known for his contributions to the free jazz movement of the 1960s as well as his innovations and influence on trio playing and his early live performance on the Moog and ARP synthesizers. His music has been described by Ben Ratliff of the New York Times as "deeply original and aesthetically aggressive". Bley's prolific output includes influential recordings from the 1950s through to his solo piano recordings of the 2000s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canadian classical music</span>

In Canada, classical music includes a range of musical styles rooted in the traditions of Western or European classical music that European settlers brought to the country from the 17th century and onwards. As well, it includes musical styles brought by other ethnic communities from the 19th century and onwards, such as Indian classical music and Chinese classical music. Since Canada's emergence as a nation in 1867, the country has produced its own composers, musicians and ensembles. As well, it has developed a music infrastructure that includes training institutions, conservatories, performance halls, and a public radio broadcaster, CBC, which programs a moderate amount of Classical music. There is a high level of public interest in classical music and education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mulgrew Miller</span> American jazz pianist

Mulgrew Miller was an American jazz pianist, composer, and educator. As a child he played in churches and was influenced on piano by Ramsey Lewis and then Oscar Peterson. Aspects of their styles remained in his playing, but he added the greater harmonic freedom of McCoy Tyner and others in developing as a hard bop player and then in creating his own style, which influenced others from the 1980s on.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Appleyard</span> British–Canadian jazz vibraphonist, percussionist, and composer

Peter Appleyard, was a British–Canadian jazz vibraphonist, percussionist, and composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Junior Mance</span> American jazz pianist and composer (1928–2021)

Julian Clifford Mance, Jr., known as Junior Mance, was an American jazz pianist and composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sammy Price</span> American pianist and bandleader

Samuel Blythe Price was an American jazz, boogie-woogie and jump blues pianist and bandleader. Price's playing is dark, mellow, and relaxed rather than percussive, and he was a specialist at creating the appropriate mood and swing for blues and rhythm and blues recordings.

Myron Pierman "Mynie" Sutton was a Canadian alto saxophonist and bandleader.

Timothy Richard Sullivan is a Canadian composer, pianist, and music educator. A member of the Canadian League of Composers and an associate of the Canadian Music Centre, he has been commissioned to write works for ARRAYMUSIC, Donald Bell, and the Stratford Festival among others. He is particularly known for his operas and was notably composer-in-residence at the Canadian Opera Company in 1987-1988. His composition are noted for their use of various media and incorporation of several musical idioms, including jazz, chance music, traditional harmony, and serialism.

The Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto is one of several professional faculties at the University of Toronto. The Faculty of Music is located at the Edward Johnson Building, just south of the Royal Ontario Museum and north of Queen's Park, west of Museum Subway Station. MacMillan Theatre and Walter Hall are located in the Edward Johnson Building. The Faculty of Music South building contains rehearsal rooms and offices, and the Upper Jazz Studio performance space is located at 90 Wellesley Street West. In January 2021, the Faculty announced Dr. Ellie Hisama as the new Dean starting July 1, 2021.

Edward Valentine Bonnemère, known professionally as Eddie Bonnemère, was an African-American jazz pianist as well as a Catholic church musician and composer. His "Missa Hodierna" became in 1965 the first Jazz Mass ever used in a Catholic church in the United States.

References

Footnotes
Sources
Further reading