Cooper-Moore is a musical renaissance man. He’s a pianist who also invents and builds his own instruments. He’s steeped in history and tradition, and refreshingly free from convention. In this interview, Cooper-Moore talks about his childhood days as the town musician; why he feels that playing music is far more than a profession; and how and why he began creating his own instruments. Learn more at www.hopscotchrecords.com/cooper.html.

Several of the tunes in this interview come from the new Digital Primitives album. If you’d like to buy this recording, you can support The Jazz Session by purchasing it via the link below:

Harpist Edmar Castaneda combines folkloric music from his native Colombia with jazz and other latin influences on his new album, Entre Cuerdas (ArtistShare, 2009). In this interview, Castaneda talks about his discovery of jazz as a teenager; his first attempts to sit in at descarga jam session … on the harp; and how he ended up with what is probably the only harp-trombone-percussion trio in the world. Learn more at edmarcastaneda.com.

If you’d like to buy the album, you can support The Jazz Session by purchasing it via the link below: