Jacki Cooper - Vocal teacher
Award-winning Jazz vocalist, Jacki Cooper has been living and working all over the world, and now calls Sydney home. She earned a Bachelor of Music in Jazz voice in 1993 at Adelaide’s prestigious Elder Conservatorium and is currently completing a Masters by research into jazz voice education in regional schools at Central Queensland University.
Early in her career, Jacki recorded and performed regularly with legendary jazz composer, Dave Dallwitz, enabling her to also work with Australian jazz greats, Graeme Bell and Ade Monsborough.
In 1994, Jacki was invited to teach jazz voice for the world-renowned Stanford Jazz Workshop at Stanford University in California. During this time, she gigged regularly with local San Francisco musicians, sang on Fog in the City Radio with the Harvey Wainapel Quintet, and performed with the Jim Cullum Jazz Band at the famous Landing Jazz Club on the Riverwalk in San Antonio, Texas. While in the USA, Jacki studied voice with a bevy of renowned jazz singers including Mark Murphy and Betty Carter, and also took instruction from musicians Mulgrew Miller, John Clayton and Lewis Nash.
Always ready to hit the road to sing, Jacki toured Europe, Russia and Scandinavia with an 8 piece swing band, and sang with jazz luminaries in the USA, Vietnam and China, as well as Australia of course. Highlights include performing in New York City in March 2009, and performing at the Oriental Arts Centre in Shanghai with the Shanghai Symphony Big Band.
Married to drummer and big band leader, John Morrison, they are both dedicated jazz educators who travel around Australia teaching and performing at schools, festivals and community events, lecturing at Jazz Camp, and generally spreading the word of jazz.
Jacki is an in-demand clinician for choirs and individual vocalists. Her choir workshops cover jazz, gospel and contemporary repertoire, introduction to scat, vocal technique and understanding the voice. She has adjudicated at many eisteddfods and competitions including the Sydney Eisteddfod and the Northern Beaches Eisteddfod, but these days prefers the outcomes generated by workshops over competitive events.
Jacki was appointed to the position of voice tutor for the Bachelor of Music course at Central Queensland University, Mackay in 2013. Along with John Morrison she is the patron of Smithfield State High School’s Jazz Academy in Cairns, the Brisbane Jazz Club’s Big Band Festival, and is co-founder and vice president of the Big Band Blast Festival in Port Macquarie.