Tom Cora

Tom Cora (Photo: Schindelbeck)

Tom Cora (born September 14, 1953 in Yancey Mills, Virginia as Thomas Henry Corra ; † April 9, 1998 in Draguignan , France ) was an American cellist who was mainly active in the field of freely improvised music , art rock and avant-garde jazz .

Live and act

Cora began as a drummer in local folk bands, played guitar in the house band of a jazz club in Washington, DC in the mid-1970s , only then to begin on the cello. He took lessons from a student of Pau Casals and then from Karl Berger . With his Woodstock Workshop Orchestra he toured Europe with Don Cherry and Lee Konitz . Then he moved to New York City , where he appeared with John Zorn and Eugene Chadbourne in the group Shockabilly , but also with Wayne Horvitz , David Moss and Toshinori Kondō . With Bill Laswell and George Cartwright he founded the group Curlew in 1980 , with Fred Frith Skeleton Crew , first as a duo, then expanded to include Zeena Parkins with the second album in 1984 . From 1986 Cora began to work increasingly as a soloist, but also in a duo with the guitarist Hans Reichel . Since 1991 he has played regularly with the Dutch political punk band The Ex . With Sam Bennett (percussion and sampler) he founded the trio Third Person , to which the saxophonist Kazutoki Umezu as the "third person" for two productions and Don Byron , Steve Lacy , Myra Melford and Marc Ribot for individual pieces in The Bends (1994) or Catherine Jauniaux were invited. Cora was married to Jauniaux, a Belgian vocalist , to the end; he died of complications from melanoma .

Martin Kunzler : Jazz Lexicon. Volume 1: A – L (= rororo-Sachbuch. Vol. 16512). 2nd Edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-499-16512-0 .

personal data
SURNAME	Cora, Tom
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Corra, Thomas Henry (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American musician (cello, composition)
DATE OF BIRTH	September 14, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH	Yancey Mills , Virginia
DATE OF DEATH	April 9, 1998
Place of death	Draguignan , France