>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

PIANIST EXTRAORDINAIRE: Friday's concert essentially will be the same as the recital Matt Cooper played in Russia, slightly abridged. Cooper's performance in Khabarovsk was almost two hours long. (Observer file photo).

It's a concert long overdue, and one that will be talked about long into the future.

Matt Cooper is giving a full-length jazz piano concert Friday at 7:30 p.m. in McKenzie Theatre.

Although this is part of the Faculty Recital Series, it is the first all-jazz solo concert Cooper has presented during his tenure as a music professor at Eastern Oregon University.

"I've done a number of them previously — at my former teaching job at Central State University in Ohio, for example, and in Russia," Cooper said.

Cooper and fellow musician Lanetta Paul have made two trips to Khabarovsk, Russia, to share their musical knowledge and build cultural bridges, the last in the fall of 2003.

Friday's recital will include not only jazz in the standard sense but note-for-note performances of classic, historic jazz recordings.

It's essentially the same recital Cooper played in Russia, slightly abridged. That recital was almost two hours long.

And the concert could be the final step in a fund drive to pay for the Piano Project. The proceeds will go to pay off the loan on the new pianos the Eastern Music Department is buying.

"All these reasons make it a very special program," Cooper said, "one that I think will be interesting and fun."

Admission for the Friday concert is $8, $5 for students and seniors.

The purpose of the concert is twofold, Cooper said. First, it's designed to re-create the recital Cooper gave in Khabarovsk in September, allowing students and community members here an opportunity to enjoy the music. Second, the recital is designed to raise money and — hopefully — finish paying for the Piano Project.

What's more, sharing the recital with the EOU and La Grande community is a requirement of a grant Cooper received from the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs. His research involved, among other things, transcribing, learning and performing several classic jazz piano recordings, note-for-note. Chief among these is the boogie-woogie classic "Climbin' and Screamin'," recorded by pianist Pete Johnson in 1939.

"This piece has, to my knowledge, never been played in its entirety by anyone other than its creator," Cooper said. "So when I played it in Russia it was a world premiere."

The Friday concert will be the piece's North American premiere.

Also included will be a similar performance re-creating New Orleans pianist Jelly Roll Morton's Latin-tinged "Mamanita," Harlem Stride pianist James P. Johnson's "Carolina Shout" and a couple of other pieces.

"All three of the transcriptions I mentioned are included in the recording ‘Smithsonian Collection of Jazz Piano,' so they are literally considered classic piano music, Cooper explained.

Rounding out the program will be a number of improvised versions of jazz standards by George Gershwin, Duke Ellington and others. These will be fully improvised, performed in the manner that jazz musicians use everyday, whereas the transcriptions will be played note-for-note — the way classical musicians play.

Also included in the recital will be a special surprise guest performing with Cooper on the second half of the program. This is a performer well-known to La Grande audiences.