Tom Cora

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 active primarily in the area of free improvised music, art rock and avant-garde jazz.

Cora began as a drummer in local folk bands, played the mid-1970s guitar in the house band of a jazz club in Washington, DC, and only then to start on the cello. He took lessons from a student of Pau Casals and then at Karl Berger. With its Woodstock Workshop Orchestra, he was with Don Cherry and Lee Konitz on a European tour. Then he moved to New York City, where he performed 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 in 1980 he founded the group Curlew, Fred Frith with Skeleton Crew, first as a duo, then expanded with the second album in 1984 with Zeena Parkins. From 1986 Cora began increasingly to work as a soloist, but also as a duo with guitarist Hans Reichel. Since 1991, he then played regularly with the Dutch political punk band The Ex With Sam Bennett ( percussion and sampler ), he founded the trio Third Person to the "third person " for two productions of the saxophonist Umezu Kazutoki and The Bends (1994 ) were invited for individual pieces Don Byron, Steve Lacy, Myra Melford, Marc Ribot or Catherine Jauniaux. With the Belgian vocalist Jauniaux Cora was married to the last.