If you spend much time in the Loop, chances are you’ve heard them: an eight-piece group under the el tracks, playing in a head-turning style that crosses the syncopated pleasures of funky New Orleans brass with the precision and rich harmonies of modern jazz. In a city full of street performers, the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble seem to be on a different level, and they are. The eight young men are brothers, and they all learned to play music together, immersed from early childhood in the teachings of their father, trumpeter and composer Kelan Phil Cohran.
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But no one felt that influence more strongly than his kids–he has 19 in all–and especially the eight who make up Hypnotic. From the time they were old enough to pick up an instrument, the brothers were awakened each morning at five for an hour-long lesson before school. “It was something we had to do,” says trumpeter Gabriel Hubert, at 26 the eldest band member. “When you’re a child you can’t tell your parents, ‘No, I don’t want to do that.’” In part to give them something to practice for, Cohran scheduled performances at community events for what he called Phil Cohran & His Youth Ensemble. “We’d work on long tones, tonguing exercises, and then go over material we might be playing at shows,” says Gabriel.
All this on top of school was a lot to take, and the strain on the kids grew as they got older. “There were times in the summer or during spring break when everyone’s out playing,” says Gabriel. “You don’t necessarily want to be on that strict rehearsal time when you got this girl you’re trying to meet or you got something else to do.” Cohran’s own career had been marked by a constant drive to break away and establish his own identity; with Sun Ra and again with AACM, he elected to leave rather than adapt to ideas he didn’t agree with. Now his sons were breaking away from him.
Early the same year Mark Henning, a member of the local art-pop band National Trust, came across Hypnotic playing downtown and was blown away. “It had this mournful sound and it was really sophisticated,” he says. “I was having a bad day when I heard them, and it struck a chord for me.” He convinced band leader Neil Rosario to go see them. Rosario too became a fan, and he later bought one of the CDs that Hypnotic started selling at their performances in 2001 (according to Gabriel they’ve sold thousands of copies on the street; the disc is now available at Reckless Records). Eventually Henning and Rosario offered to help with future recordings. Last fall, when the National Trust were working on their new album at Engine Music in Wicker Park, they used studio downtime for sessions with Hypnotic. A split single by the two groups is due later this year on the English label Tongue Master; meanwhile Hypnotic are finishing up a record with Henning, which they plan to release sometime in 2004.
