Drummer/percussionist Jerome Cooper made his name as an integral part of the superb Revolutionary Ensemble and also played with many members of the jazz avant-garde of the late '60s and '70s, including Anthony Braxton. Largely as a result of the teaching programs fostered by the AACM, many musicians around that time had begun to perform solo concerts with instruments not normally associated with solo performance, including saxophones, brass, and drums. The typical drummer, bearing the responsibility of holding the audience's attention for an hour or more, tended to employ his entire arsenal, hoping perhaps to overwhelm his listeners with a barrage of sonic effects, often at the expense of musical rigor and value. Cooper chose an entirely different and far more rewarding tack: for each composition he would restrict himself to, say, sock cymbal, bass drum, and bowed saw, and work with great concentration using only that limited palette, extracting a surprisingly enormous amount of musical richness. On Root Assumption, with a balaphone (an African antecedent to the marimba) featured prominently, Cooper creates an amazing and beautiful variety of percussive sounds, rhythms, and melodies over the course of the 32-minute composition, making the session an unforgettable one. His main source of inspiration appears to have been the West African percussive tradition and, possibly, the minimalism of Steve Reich, himself heavily influenced by Ghanaian drumming. The pure musicality of Cooper's sound is astonishing and the listener quickly forgets that he/she is listening to a "mere" drummer. Root Assumptions is one of the finest solo efforts by any jazz musician, regardless of instrument, and is very highly recommended to listeners of progressive jazz, minimalism, and traditional African music. ~ Brian Olewnick, Rovi