Cooper Appelt

Born in Texas, Cooper Appelt now lives with his wife in Los Angeles while maintaining a full schedule of performing on upright and electric bass, recording, and writing music.While in Texas, he recorded and toured nationally and internationally with Texas reggae artist Cas Haley(America’s Got Talent), The Ray Johnston Band, ForJAK and the award winning funk band Backside Pick. While living in Dallas, Texas, Cooper performed with many artists including saxophonist Keith Anderson, Shelly Carroll, Bobby Sparks, and was a member of the Bernard Wright Trio. He was also a star on the show Ray Johnston Band Road Diaries, which aired on HDNet. Cooper earned his bachelor’s degree in Jazz Performance from the University of North Texas while studying with Lynn Seaton (longtime bassist of Count Basie’s Band). He was also a finalist in both the 2009 and 2015 International Society of Bassists Jazz Bass competitionSince moving to Los Angeles in the fall of 2010, Cooper has continued performing, recording, and writing music. He records and tours internationally with trioKait, Kan Wakan, The Station Breaks, Jason Manns, and Robert Davi. He has also performed and/or recorded with Sly 5th Ave’s Club Casa Orchestra, Paul McDonalds Big Band, Geoffrey Stradling’s Big Band, Randy Waldman, Kim Richmond, Skip Spiro’s Little Big Band, Matt Yeakley Group, Danny Janklow, Dave Tull, Trumpetology, Kevin Hicks, The Fairground Saints, The Vibrometers, Paul the Trombonist, the Tex Beneke Orchestra and many Cooper and his wife, Laurel, currently own and operate Fireflower Studios in Los Angeles, where they record music and voiceover for many different projects.