With honor

It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon during the 2010 35 Denton music festival when Denton musician and composer Andy Cooper sat at a wobbling bistro table at Dan's Silverleaf. He was laughing at a documentary that tracked underground music on one of the coasts, and reflecting on a big decision he made eight years ago. Courtesy photo Andy Cooper View larger More photos Photo store

"I made two big decisions when I had my heart attack," Cooper said. "I stopped smoking, and I decided that for the rest of my life, I would spend 90 percent of my time playing music and 10 percent making a living instead of the other way around. Hey, lying on an operating table with your chest cracked open makes things a lot more clear to you."

Cooper looked absently behind the small bar. His long hair was in its signature ponytail, and he scratched the thick gray mustache he's worn for years.

"It makes things clear to you if you're lucky," he added.

Last summer, when the Texas sun baked the soil so hot the ground dried out two feet down, Cooper was back on the operating table. This time, surgeons were repairing two blocked arteries they'd seen to in his first surgery. It was a routine procedure on Aug. 6 that should have had the clarinetist, guitarist and double-recorder player back up on his feet and back with a popular local jazz band he started, Le Not So Hot Klub du Denton. The band consistently packed Banter, a downtown hot spot, on the first Tuesday of the month. They tipped a hat to jazz legend Django Reinhardt and his Parisian jazz group. But the band didn't deal in copycat jazz. They played jazz in the Denton way - skirting some rules here and there, and playing with abandon.

Le Not So Hot Klub was actually kind of hot. Cooper took the stage and whipped up the crowd, sweating and snapping, but always, always playing with all his might.

In surgery, things didn't go as expected, said Teresa Cooper, Andy's wife and University of North Texas dance faculty member. Courtesy photo/The Side Street Circus Gerald Edmundson, left, Andy Cooper and Rodney Barton are pictured at Addison Oktoberfest as performers with The Side Street Circus, which is a band and a juggling, magic and mime troupe. View larger More photos Photo store

"He was in the hospital for a week so they could do tests and find out how things were going," she said. "What happened is that his heart was beating so well that some plaque in one of his arteries broke loose."

Then, disaster. 

The blockage freed from one of his arteries traveled to his brain. Cooper had a major stroke. It affected almost all of the right half of his brain, the hemisphere that governs feelings, the imagination and riddles out how objects function.

Cooper is still rehabilitating. He's living at the Centre for Neuro Skills, a residential specialty center in Irving.

"His left arm is paralyzed. His left leg is paralyzed, but he can stand on it,"  Teresa Cooper said. "He can walk, but a therapist has to move his left leg."

Her husband is "very motivated" to regain his ability to walk, which he might always do with a cane or walker. He's also started playing music.

"He's playing the piano with his right hand," Teresa Cooper said. "Which is strange, given that the piano has never been his primary instrument. But he's playing, and enjoying it."

Longtime friend and colleague Gerald Edmundson has worked with Cooper for 25 years. Edmundson is the founder and artistic director of The Side Street Circus, an acoustic music and performance ensemble. The group also performs juggling, magic and mime, performing on the spot at festivals.

"I first met Andy when we were going to the same church, and had a little church band," said Edmundson, who plays accordion in the circus. "It was in about 1985, and The Side Street Circus had been going for about four, maybe five, years. One day, after church, I said, 'Andy, do you play polkas?' He said 'no,' and I asked, 'Want to try?' and he said 'sure.'"

Edmundson said he and Cooper sat at the church after the service for hours. Edmundson said he's still struck by how fast and how well Cooper picked up the polka.

"I know a lot about polka, having heard it with my father and grandfather as a kid. Andy picked it up so fast on clarinet. It surprised the heck out of me," he said.

Cooper became the first "add-on" to the circus, which took its platform show across Texas and into Louisiana. Cooper played clarinet, guitar and would play songs on two recorders - one held up to each nostril.

Edmundson said Cooper took to the comedy routines of the circus like he was a natural.

"Oh, he had this really funny bit," Edmundson said. "We'd play at these festivals and on the street and we'd interact with the crowd. Andy would be teaching people in the crowd how to do the 'Chicken Dance.' He'd be showing them how to hold up their hands and then tuck their fingers under their arms to flap their wings, and while he'd be doing that, I'd be going around picking their pockets. Everyone else would be laughing and the people learning to dance wouldn't notice."

Denton jazz guitarist and teacher Thad Bonduris said he's been in Denton about as long as Andy - maybe 40 years - but only met him about nine years ago.

"Le Not So Hot Klub du Denton was an amateur band at that time. Not anymore," Bonduris said. "I think Andy's passion for the music really connected with the audience, and with other musicians. He really took in some musicians who were really just developing and, because of Andy, those musicians have gotten really good."

Brave Combo founder and front man Carl Finch was soon showing up for the shows at Banter, as were other musicians.

"Andy was always inviting people up on stage to play with the band," said Bonduris, who became a member of the band himself, and who now directs the band in Cooper's stead. "At first, that was something that went out of my comfort zone. As a professional musician, that line between the performer and audience isn't crossed, really. Not because you think you're better than the audience, or because you don't want to connect with them, because you do. But there is this line, and when you invite someone up on stage, you don't really know what's going to happen. Andy just stripped that barrier away. It was a little dangerous, but he opened the door to a lot of talent right here in Denton. People have benefitted from him."

Bonduris said playing with the band, which they now call Le Not Quite So Hot Klub du Denton (a hat tip to Cooper's absence), he's not worried about the on-the-spot guests.

"Andy always said, 'If I don't feel like I'm a very good musician, then I surround myself with people I know are better than me,'" Bonduris said.

Edmundson said Cooper wasn't a man who threw "can't" around flippantly.

"He was always so upbeat," Edmundson said. "I can't remember him complaining, ever. Even when we had a gig where it was so cold you couldn't play. He always played and he never complained."

Both Edmundson and Bonduris said they've visited Andy at the rehabilitation center, where he's enjoyed a lot of visitors. They said the musician is making slow progress, but neither are optimistic about Cooper being able regain the stamina and mobility to play music as naturally as he did before his stroke.

"It's sad. I heard him grow as a musician and with his improvisation by leaps and bounds," Bonduris said. "Even on the [upright] bass, he got to where he could play pretty well. And he kept his clarinet and guitar chops up with Gerald's group."

Edmundson said the chances of Cooper playing with Le Not Quite So Hot Klub seem slight. Before his stroke, Cooper was sharing the Hot Klub's stage with Steve Prouty and Michael Minardi on the drums, Bonduris on the guitar and Bach Norwood on string bass. Finch would sit in, as would Brave Combo clarinetist Jeff Barnes.

Teresa Cooper said the family and Andy are taking things one day at a time when it comes to music.

"Every brain injury is different, and you just don't know how recovery will go," she said. "He's really excited about the concert [today]. We'll have a piano there in case he wants to play by ear.

"We didn't ask his friends to do this fundraiser, but of course we're so grateful. The center is expensive, but it's not just the therapy. You know, there are the extra medications and the doctor visits. We're really grateful. I actually feel for some of the other people at the center, because they don't have this kind of support."

The fundraiser will most likely include some of the "happy jazz, happy dance music" Cooper loves, Edmundson said.

"Years ago, I heard [Russian pianist and composer] Arthur Rubinstein talking about how the technical ability of modern pianists was beyond what you could imagine. But he had one question: 'Where's the music?'" Edmundson said. "When I listen to music, I find myself sometimes asking that question. But not with Andy. I never had to ask, 'Where's the music?' - the music was there with him. Right there."

LUCINDA BREEDING can be reached at 940-566-6877. Her e-mail address is cbreeding@dentonrc.com.

IF YOU GO

What: a fundraising concert for Andy Cooper

Who: Le Not Quite So Hot Klub du Denton, Mister Joe, Side Street Circus, David Hira, Brave Combo

When: 3 p.m. today

Where: Center for the Visual Arts, 400 E. Hickory St.

Details: Free, but donations will be accepted.

On the Web: www.caringbridge.org/visit/andrewcooper/mystory

CONNECT WITH ANDY

Friends can keep up with Andy Cooper in person. Those who want to visit should call the Centre for Neuro Skills at 972-594-0549, and ask for Andy Cooper's apartment. If there's no answer, callers can check with the center to find out if the musician will be there at the time and date they'd like to visit. The center is located at 3915 Portland St. in Irving.