1. Thomas Henry Corra, better known as Tom Cora, was an American cellist and composer, best known for his improvisational performances in the field of experimental jazz and rock.
21 Facts About Tom Cora
1. 2.
Tom Cora recorded with John Zorn, Butch Morris, and the Ex, and was a member of Curlew, Third Person and Skeleton Crew.
3.
Tom Cora was born in Yancey Mills, Virginia, United States.
4.
Tom Cora made his musical debut as drummer on a local television program and in the mid-1970s he played guitar for a Washington, DC jazz club house band.
5.
Tom Cora took up the cello while an undergraduate at the University of Virginia and studied with cellist Pablo Casals' student Luis Garcia-Renart and later with vibraphonist Karl Berger.
6.
In 1979 Cora moved to New York City, where he worked with Shockabilly guitarist Eugene Chadbourne, introducing the cello to the honky tonk circuits of North America.
7.
Tom Cora performed at improvising clubs and venues in New York with John Zorn, Fred Frith, Andrea Centazzo, Butch Morris, Wayne Horvitz, David Moss, Toshinori Kondo and others.
8.
Tom Cora collaborated with George Cartwright and Bill Laswell which led to the formation of the art rock band Curlew in 1979.
9.
Tom Cora remained with Curlew for over ten years and appeared on five of their albums.
10.
In 1982 Tom Cora and Fred Frith formed Skeleton Crew, an improvising rock and jazz band best known for their live performances where they played various instruments simultaneously.
11.
Tom Cora was a member of the improvising trio Third Person, formed in 1990 as a live collaboration with percussionist Samm Bennett and a "third person" who changed from concert to concert.
12.
Tom Cora performed with a number of other bands, including Nimal with Momo Rossel and post-rock quartet Roof.
13.
In 1990, he played two concerts with Dutch anarcho-punk band, the Ex, and the success of this collaboration resulted in Tom Cora performing hundreds of concerts with the Ex and appearing on two of their CDs.
14.
Tom Cora died of malignant melanoma at the age of 44 in a hospital in the south of France, where he lived with his wife, singer Catherine Jauniaux, and their son, Elia Corra.
15.
Tom Cora appeared in Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel's 1990 documentary film on Fred Frith, Step Across the Border, in which Tom Cora and Frith are filmed rehearsing at The Kitchen, New York City in February 1989.
16.
Tom Cora unveiled the system in a 25 concert solo tour in 1992.
17.
Besides performing, Tom Cora composed music for the National Film Board of Canada, choreographer Donna Uchizono, and a solo cello film score for Dziga Vertov's, Man with the Movie Camera, commissioned by the American Museum of the Moving Image.
18.
In 1994 Tom Cora was awarded a Meet the Composer Commissioning Grant to compose an ensemble score for Man with the Movie Camera.
19.
Tom Cora's cello was prepared, electronically modified and highly amplified.
20.
Tom Cora developed the style of playing sawed chords and percussive riffs as if his cello was an electric guitar.
21.
Tom Cora explored non-idiomatic improvising and studied Turkish and Eastern European folk music.