Cooper played a Clinton system clarinet and claimed to have had no particular influences but there were echoes of all the major Creole players in his work including Noone,Simeon and Darnell Howard.He also enjoyed New York jazz of the 20s,naming Jimmy Dorsey as a favourite. ‘Hot’ dance music by such obscure figures as 20s Chicago bandleader/saxist Paul Biese appealed to him and he particularly adored the charming songs of Cliff Edwards,`Ukelele Ike’.

He was an avid frequenter of junk shops and collected such obscure instruments as hot fountain pens and sarrusaphones which is perhaps why it seems Roland Kirk became a friend and would visit him to share this passion. Apparently Kenny Davern,not known for his modesty,would make a point of listening to Cooper when he visited London and was heard to praise him publicly.

I first had the pleasure of meeting and working with Coops in the late 70s when he played several gigs with Bill Brunskill’s band in South London and I was often invited to his palatial house in Wandsworth Common which,with its astounding collection of antiquities of all kinds, seemed almost like an annexe of the Victoria & Albert Museum.(When he moved to his final home in Hay-on-Wye it seemed as if a stage set had simply been struck and reassembled on another location!)Invariably the avuncular Coops would greet you(`Dear boy’) at his front door with a parrot that had already deposited something unmentionable on his Norfolk-jacketed shoulder and there would always be a long-term stew bubbling on the stove,perhaps a goat curry accompanied by an ancient killer-strength pickle of some sort!

We later worked alongside each other in Dick Laurie’s Elastic Band,occasionally with Coops’ old friend Jim Shepherd on bass sax. In 1979 Alan recruited a band for drummer Dave Mills,our mutual friend, who had been responsible for launching The New Temperance Seven with Coops and another near-genius Willie Hastie a few years previously but now lived in Bahrain.The idea was to assemble a group to entertain the ex-pats living in the Gulf.Alan kindly invited me to join and,indeed,we were to successfully tour the area for almost twenty years.
Continued on Farewell 3