BRATTLEBORO — The Vermont Jazz Center is excited to present Cole Porter Fellow and pianist Emmet Cohen, who will be performing live from the VJC in his working trio, with Russell Hall (acoustic bass) and Kyle Poole (drums). The trio will be joined by a special guest, guitar legend Mark Whitfield.
Cohen's list of awards and accomplishments is impressive, but these days he's attracting a particularly high level of attention due to his weekly livestream Facebook concerts. As of this writing, he has produced 36 episodes with A-list jazzers, including Cyrille Aimée, Warren Wolf, Veronica Swift, and Whitfield.
These Monday-night Facebook sessions at Cohen's Harlem apartment give audiences the feel of a late-night New York club. Cohen says the intimate gatherings, imbued with the camaraderie one experiences where many of the patrons are “regulars,” now garner approximately 1,000 viewers per week.
Cohen's technique is breathtaking, his swing feeling is buoyant, and his interactions among his musical cohorts are telepathic. He has been the pianist in bassist Christian McBride's Tip City Trio project. McBride calls Emmet “one of the most dynamic young musicians on the scene today.”
Jeff Potter of DownBeat magazine states: “Cohen's playing springs from tradition. Favoring swinging phrasing and concise melodic arcs colored by rich harmonic vocabulary, the tasteful pianist never lets his nimble, cleanly articulated technique overflow into clutter. His music's uplifting attitude is frequently colored with wit.” [Editor's note: This reviewer is not the same Jeff Potter who edits this newspaper.]
Cohen is the winner of the 2019 American Pianists Awards; he was chosen as this year's Cole Porter Fellow by the American Pianists Association and placed first in both the 2014 American Jazz Pianists Competition and the 2011 Phillips Piano Competition. He was also a finalist in the 2011 Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz International Piano Competition.
He has appeared at jazz festivals throughout the world, including Newport, Monterey, Detroit, North Sea, Bern, Edinburgh, Jerusalem, and New Orleans. He has performed at the Village Vanguard, the Blue Note, Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, Birdland, Jazz Standard, London's Ronnie Scott's, Jazzhus Montmartre, Lincoln Center's Rose Hall, the Cotton Club in Tokyo, and Washington's Kennedy Center.
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Cohen is a young musician (he turned 30 in May), well versed in the vernacular of modern styles. Yet he has been called “an obvious heir apparent to the neo-traditional jazz mantle” by The New York Times jazz critic Giovanni Russonello.
On his website, Cohen says in his biography that jazz “is enriched immeasurably by connecting and studying with jazz masters, forging backward to the very creation of the art form.”
Cohen lives by those words. To pay respect to his mentors, he has initiated the Masters Legacy Series, a project that to date has featured four volumes of his trio accompanying great elders still playing the clubs. These jazz legends include Jimmy Cobb, Ron Carter, Benny Golson, Tootie Heath, and George Coleman. Videos of these sessions convey feelings of love, joy and mutual respect.
“Playing with someone like Emmet inspires me,” the nonagenarian Golson told CityBeat Cincinnati. “He shows such imagination in his playing and that's what we need as performers.”
Cohen is eager to collaborate with the 56-year-old Whitfield at the Vermont Jazz Center. He acknowledges Whitfield's rich and varied experience and defers to his wisdom.
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Guitarist Mark Whitfield is a highly regarded performer with a sound that touches upon both straight-ahead jazz and R&B. As a youth, he was influenced by the warm, soulful stylings of George Benson, whom he later befriended. Benson recommended Whitfield to funky organ titan Brother Jack McDuff, which led to tours and record deals.
Later on, Whitfield joined with another legendary player, Jimmy Smith, thus establishing him as a heavy hitter in the organ trio sub-genre. To date, Whitfield has appeared on more than 200 albums as a sideman and has released a dozen as a leader.
He is the featured guitarist on Christian McBride's newly released big band album with organist Joey DeFrancesco highlighting the music of Smith and Wes Montgomery.
Whitfield has also performed with Herbie Hancock, Art Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie, Shirley Horn, and Carmen McRae and can be heard on recordings led by Camille Thurman, Warren Wolf, Herlin Riley, Chris Botti, Javon Jackson, James Williams, Juan Carlos Formell, Courtney Pine, Cedar Walton, Ernie Watts, Teodross Avery, Carl Allen, Nicholas Payton, Cleo Laine, Kenny Garrett, and Donald Harrison.
His flexibility and deep, soulful sound have also earned him a place on R&B-influenced albums by Mary J. Blige, and D'Angelo.
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The bassist in the Emmet Cohen Trio, Russell Hall, performed at the Vermont Jazz Center with the Christian Sands Trio in February 2017.
Hall, originally from Jamaica, took part in the Essentially Ellington Jazz Competition from 2010 to 2012 and was awarded Most Outstanding Bassist for all three years. He was a member of the 2012 Jazz Band of America and the Vail Jazz Workshop, and he was recognized by Wynton Marsalis in Jet as “a jazz star of the future.”
Hall graduated from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Ron Carter.
He has also performed or recorded with Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, Aaron Diehl, Wayne Shorter, Roy Haynes, the Heath Brothers, Joshua Redman, Jon Hendricks, Kathleen Battle, Herlin Riley, Cyrus Chestnut, Russell Malone, Jon Batiste and Stay Human, Joey Alexander, Harold Mabern, and many others.
On drums will be Kyle Poole, one of Wynton Marsalis's “Young Stars of Jazz.” Poole has performed with George Cables, Sullivan Fortner, Jeremy Pelt, Mike LeDonne, Peter Bernstein, Frank Lacy, Stacy Dillard, Joel Frahm, Joel Ross, Giveton Gelin, Mathis Picard, and many others.
He was a semi-finalist in the 2012 Thelonious Monk Institute Competition. His ensemble, Poole and the Gang, features flute virtuosa Elena Pinderhughes.
VJC is grateful for the generosity of dear friend and long-term supporter Diana Bingham, this concert's sponsor, who is especially fond of encouraging younger musicians to reach for the stars.
Emmet Cohen's group provides an example of the music she loves - a swinging beat and a repertoire that is both familiar and exciting.