9-11-01

World

Aug 18

"Remembering the day the earth stood still"

Twenty years ago I was just settling in from visiting friends in Texas. I had flown back on American Airlines from McAllen Texas to LAX (Los Angeles), several days before 9/11. At the time I was living in Santa Monica near Venice. For a couple of months, I had been planning to record a new album project, I had put together a small studio, separate from my main studio. The setup was a couple of keyboards, a 20-bit Adat, a good microphone, a mic-pre, a compressor, and a 16-channel mixer. I started to record on 9/10/01 the day before 9/11, with no real direction other than starting to record a new project.

On the morning of 9/11, I received a phone call from my girlfriend Pamela. She was in tears, exclaiming that America had been attacked and the world trade center was in flames on the TV, so turn on the TV and see for yourself. At that point, something happened and it was as if I was being directed, the rest became a series of improvised compositions. Everyone was glued to the TV wondering what might happen next. I then had the idea to record sound bites from the TV. At one point I put down a beat, then layered 5 tracks of what was going on, it was chaos, I ended up calling the track Dark Tuesday.

After recording for four days, by Friday I had recorded over 2 hours of music and sound bites. At that point, I moved over to my main studio and I brought in my engineer Steve Katz. I recorded Jamie Papish on middle-eastern percussion and Antonine I. Harb on stringed instruments from the middle-east. I had done some spoken words with the tracks that appear in a couple of places on the album. I brought in my friend Diane Vaughn, she did some beautiful stream of consciousness spoken words on two of the tracks. A lady named Serpentine that Jamie knew was recommended and she did some wild vocalizations and vocal effects. Within two weeks all of the tracks were recorded and some tracks were mixed. The album was released on the first anniversary of 9/11 and all proceeds go to charities.

My peace be with you and all the best,
Jessie Allen Cooper, 9-11-2021

Played on over 200 radio stations and received over 10,000 website hits.
Produced, Arranged, Soundscapes, Mixed, and Directed by Jessie Allen Cooper
Digital Sound Engineering by Steve Katz
Sound designer, Pro Tools, KYMA, Soundscapes, and Mastered with sonic WORKX at One-O-Eight Music & Sound, Venice, CA by Douglas Masla
Re-mix on President of USA by Rick Krizman
Keyboards, soprano saxophone, and harmonium: Jessie Allen Cooper
Bass guitar: Howard Hansen
Middle Eastern percussion instruments: Jamie Papish
Middle Eastern melodic instruments: Antoine I. Harb
Spoken words: Jackie " Sawtooth" Franklin
Spoken words: Diane Vaughn
Female vocals: Serpentine
Synth Bass on Aspects of the Heart: Steve Katz
Album cover design: Paul Tanck
Painting of Jessie on the inside panel: Michael Alatza
Night sounds from Heaven Sent: the late Jan Brodin
Publicity: Francesca Nemko
Computer Support: Cris Danes and Mark Heiliger
Production support: Brian S. Hanish
© ℗ 2001 Cooper Sound Waves (ASCAP)

Released to press August 1st, 2002- public release August 18th. Completed on Veterans Day, 2001, this timely recording was conceived and written between 9-11-2001 and 9-14-2001 as a response to the tragic events of that momentous day. This vivid musical tribute has a sense of a dual reality -- middle east meets the west and destruction meets healing. Using sound bytes from the ubiquitous television coverage of those first few days, together with eastern instrumentation and two female vocalists, this recording resonates with the composer's deep concern for all humanity.

Saints and sages of all religions,
I humbly bow to you,
in hopes that a healing will take place,
in our country, for our world, and amongst our
families and friends...
and that the world community will rise together
to fight against terrorism,
and to heal the world of hunger and fear...
J.A.C. 2001

9-11-2001 (the first 4 days)

In the middle of August 2001, I was preparing to record a new album, installing a recently acquired keyboard along with a digital recording setup. Then, I surrounded myself with some outboard gear, a good microphone, and my acoustic instruments. At the time of visualizing my stage, all I knew was that a new project would come out of this innovative way of creating. What it was or why I would be creating it was not clear. After setting up the equipment, I made myself perfectly ready to record. Then, I went on vacation for a week, arriving back late on the Thursday before "Dark Tuesday." Having rested and settled back in, on Monday night, September 10th, I recorded my first rhythm track. On Tuesday morning the phone rang. It was my dear friend, Pamela. She was quite worried and almost in tears. "Turn on the TV," she said. "The United States has been attacked." At first, I didn't get it. I was in great disbelief that this tragedy could have happened: The World Trade Center collapsed in front of my face on the television, the Pentagon was on fire, in total four planes had crashed. I usually have a big agenda on Tuesdays; however, I decided to only take care of the basics that day and started recording. While tracking, I had the idea of recording conversations on the TV. By this time I had tracked about 30 minutes of music and was unstoppable. The various sound bytes had become a part of the composition. I just kept going and going and going and listening and listening and listening and recording and recording and recording. By the start of the fourth day, I had completed the basic tracks for over two hours of music. Finally, it hit me why I was doing this! As the reality unfolded on the TV screen and we found out who the terrorists were, I decided to incorporate elements of middle eastern music into my composition, together with a need to express the sense of devastation and horror that was taking place.

My hope is that this music could help bring about some healing to the listener.

Jessie Allen Cooper
11-11-01