Sunday Concert Series

The Sunday Concert Series is back! In May, we are excited to welcome Jim Cooper to Loutit! Jim came from a musical family. Growing up on Chicago's southside, he was influenced early by his Mother and Grandmother playing piano, and his Father and Grandfather played all kinds of records from the Harmonicats, Mario Lanza, and C&W to Jimmy Smith to the Dukes of Dixieland. At nine years old, he sang along with records and played his first instrument, a metal Jay's Potato Chip can. This incessant drumming convinced his parents to buy him a rather cheap drumset, but it didn't last long and was destroyed. After the family moved to the south suburbs of Chicago, in junior high school, he sang and played drums in a top 40 rock group. In high school, he switched to keyboards, playing rock music of the '60s.  In junior college, he studied classical piano and percussion and discovered how playing the vibraphone blended perfectly with his drum and piano skills. Already composing in college, he was accepted into Ralph Shapey's composition class at the University of Chicago. In 1972, while a junior at Michigan State University, he acquired his first set of vibes and returned to Chicago to learn jazz on the vibraphone.  Inspired by what Cooper calls the 4-Bs (Bags, Bobby, Burton, and Berger), he practiced diligently, going to jam sessions, which included playing free jazz. Since 2001, he has taught jazz during summers at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp and various music classes at Lake Michigan College. He currently endorses Musser vibes and Mike Balter mallets and is working on a new recording project and a book of over twenty of his compositions and arrangements. All ages are welcome!

Registration is encouraged but not required. 

May. 19th - Jim Cooper (located in the upstairs Atrium)