Cooper-Moore was born Gene Y. Ashton on August 31, 1946, in the Piedmont area of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and began playing piano around age eight, soon performing at church and local functions. He emerged from New York's fertile 1970s loft scene, and while attending Berklee College of Music began working with saxophonist David S. Ware in the group Apogee.

Cooper-Moore did not issue a recording under his own name until the 21st century, but amassed a formidable catalog as a session player with bassist William Parker, whose own career is covered in full in his JazzProfiles.com profile, as well as Bill Cole, Darius Jones, and Butch Morris. His debut leader album, Deep in the Neighborhood of History and Influence, appeared in 2001. Beyond piano, he plays organ, flute, fife, percussion, and a range of instruments of his own design and construction, including the horizontal hoe-handle harp, ashimba, twanger, three-stringed fretless banjo, diddley-bow, mouthbow, and TeZe.

His catalog includes America with Assif Tsahar (2003), Triptych Myth with Tom Abbs and Chad Taylor (2004), 2011's Planetary Unknown with David S. Ware, William Parker, and drummer Muhammad Ali, and Stan's Hat Flapping in the Wind (2016) and Meditation / Resurrection (2017), both with Parker. He maintains a teaching association with the New School for Social Research's Jazz Department.

Cooper-Moore's dual identity as a highly individualistic avant-garde pianist and a builder of his own custom instruments made him one of free jazz's most singular sonic explorers, a musician whose formidable session catalog with William Parker and others long preceded his own recordings as a leader.