Emmet Cohen/Photo: Gabriela Gabrielaa
Sporting long curly hair, a thin beard, and often dressed in vintage sport coats and brightly colored T-shirts, Emmet Cohen represents a new generation of jazz men, but only on the surface. Jazz history pours out of his Steinway as soon as his fingers touch the keys, as Cohen covers everything from bebop to bossa nova, to stride, swing, straight-ahead jazz and much more. Cohen’s skills have landed him numerous awards, gigs at venues like Birdland, The Monterey and Newport Jazz Festivals, and appearances on nearly thirty recordings with his own ensembles and with other artists.
Yet Cohen may be best known for his program “Live from Emmet’s Place.” Streamed from his Harlem apartment, these extended jam sessions reach audiences in the tens of thousands worldwide, with one episode featuring French singer Cyrille Aimée netting seven million views. Now on volume #124 and counting, the list of performers who have stopped by includes proven masters like Randy Brecker, Joe Lovano, Nicholas Payton and Christian McBride as well as younger artists like Erena Terakubo, Samara Joy, Alexa Tarantino and many others. The idea, however, came not out of creative inspiration, but necessity due to the COVID pandemic.
“In March of 2020 we were in Winnipeg,” Cohen says. “It was freezing cold and it was kind of eerie because suddenly everybody was starting to quarantine. Then within two weeks the venues had all shut down and we were wondering—’What are we going to do to get by?’ Then we relaxed into the situation and talked about the idea of dressing up in suits and ties and doing something online or maybe streaming a show live on Facebook. We got forty thousand views, so the next week we took it seriously and hired a video person. It was kind of like a Harlem rent party,” Cohen continues. “ I am in the same building that Duke Ellington once lived in, so for those first two years of 2020-2021, it became a sort of special ritual.”
The shows feature an ever-changing array of vocalists, horn players, drummers, guitarists and bassists—male and female, young and old, singing in English or sometimes French or Portuguese. The musicians are dressed casually, and a mellow mood is set by the piano-playing Cohen continually looking over his shoulder, smiling, nodding and often laughing with joy. The variety of musicians is only exceeded by the styles and genres they play. Ranging from 1920s-era showtunes like “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” through the jazz cannon like “Just Friends,” jazz funk on “Cantaloupe Island,” and world-music standards like “Oye Como Va.” The shows cover almost a century of music. It is all held together by Cohen, who is almost like a human jazz streaming service, his deft fingers instantaneously conjuring up almost any style or period of the music.
Cohen was born in Miami in 1990 and raised in Newark, New Jersey. In 2011 he placed third in the Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition, which led to a master’s in music from the Manhattan School of Music. Cohen has spent most of his adult life in intensive study, practice and performance of piano and jazz, as the list of influences denotes that he has turned over every rock and pebble that could contain a musical answer.
“I try to use and incorporate everything I hear, like early jazz piano players Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton, Earl Hines and Art Tatum,” Cohen says. He then continues to rattle off names of twentieth-century piano players almost as fast as his fingers can play solos. “Then others like Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Ahmad Jamal, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, McCoy Tyner, Marcus Roberts…”
These are just the piano players. Cohen has also created the Masters Legacy Series, a five-volume set of recordings and interviews honoring legendary jazz musicians. Serving as both pianist and producer, the series both honors and preserves the “unwritten folklore that is America’s unique artistic idiom.” So far the series includes Jimmy Cobb, Ron Carter, Benny Golson, Tootie Heath, George Coleman and Houston Pearson.
“I played as part of the Dizzy Gillespie Alumni Big Band. Jimmy Heath was playing first tenor in the band, and I got to spend some time with him,” Cohen says. “He told incredible stories about Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, his brother Percy Heath, and other Philadelphia legends. I started thinking about all this history that needed to be preserved and I felt, this is the path, this is what I have to do.”
While Cohen is a jazzman whose pursuit of perfection is evident, his occasional loud sport coats, and the fact that most of his live streams seem to also be social occasions, point to a propensity to add joy and fun to his performances. This is evidenced by including versions of Burt Bacharach’s “This Guy’s In Love With You,” and “The Girl from Ipanema,” songs now associated with riding in elevators and rec room cocktail parties, into his streams.
“One thing that interests me is to take something that might be perceived as corny, rework it, and spin it into something hip or modern,” Cohen says.
While Cohen does not possess the ebullience of Dizzy Gillespie, he is not only a jazzman but an entertainer whose flourishes will captivate the husband, wife or friend accompanying their jazzophile partner to his performances. Fresh off of a tour of Japan, Cohen will be bringing all this via the Emmet Cohen Trio to the Jazz Showcase for an extended set November 7-10.
Emmet Cohen Trio plays Jazz Showcase, 806 South Plymouth Court, on November 7-10. Show is at 8pm. Tickets are $30-$50, available at jazzshowcase.com.
