Hotel Noctambulo by Jon Raskin & Mike Cooper

This is second digital collaboration between Jon Raskin and Mike Cooper made during the Covid Pandemic via internet file sharing.

Hotel Noctambulo is a real place. In fact it is many real places that previously when we sometimes occupied ourselves as touring musicians we would have spent many nights there. But don't let that bother you and don't lose any sleep over it. Most of the titles for these improvised pieces were culled from Thomas Pynchon's novel Against The Day but are in no way meant to illustrate or indicate anything within or without that novel.

JON RASKIN has been a member of Rova Saxophone Quartet for the last 42 years exploring the relationship of improvisation and composition, developing and honing the language of ensemble music and researching linguistic possibilities of the saxophone. He has performed and/ or recorded with Anthony Braxton, Fred Frith, Sam Rivers, Tim Berne, Phillip Johnston, Leo Smith, Frank Gratkowsi, Phillip Greenlief, Henry Kaiser and others. He plays Baritone, Alto, Soprano Saxophones, Electronics, Autoharp and voice.

MIKE COOPER - For the past 50 years he has been an international artistic explorer constantly pushing the boundaries.He plays lap steel guitar and sings, he is an improviser and composer, song-maker, a visual and installation artist; film and video maker and radio arts producer. He collaborated for 20 plus years with saxophone player Lol Coxhill and drummer Roger Turner in one of Britains most adventurous improvising groups The Recedents as well as touring internationally as a solo artist. -“His eclectic attitude has often embraced the idea of re-representing a multitude of cultural references , through a very particular way of mixing elements and fantasies into a visionary model that goes beyond the simple idea of multiculturalism” - Valerio Mannucci NERO.

released January 29, 2021

The text of Weathers is by Clark Coolidge from "A Book Beginning What and Ending Away" and used with permission.

Jon Raskin has been a member of Rova Saxophone Quartet for the last 42 years exploring the relationship of improvisation and composition, developing and honing the language of ensemble music and researching linguistic possibilities of the saxophone along with a host of known and unknown instruments.

jonraskin.com