Rachael Cohen Quartet live streaming from Ronnie Scott's - Jan. 4

Rachael Cohen (alto sax); Deschanel Gordon (piano); Joe Downard (bass); Jason Brown (drums).

(Screenshots courtesy of Ken Drew)

I vividly remember hearing Rachael Cohen at a JNE/Splinter gig in the upper room of the Bridge Hotel, Newcastle. That was back in 2013 and I was knocked out then, particularly by her lyrical playing. Well I'm pleased to report that the lyricism remains but is now updated with a more aggressive approach that combined to make this one of the best gigs of the year. I'm not being funny, I mean just about any year with or without an audience in attendance!

With 2020's BBC top cat on piano, Deschanel Gordon, kicking a lot of pianists into touch, Joe Downard doing everything right on bass and Jason Brown driving the whole thing along New York style it had all the makings. Let's face it, with a Jason Brown explosion going on behind you it's a case of put up or shut up - nobody shut up!

Not that it was all wham-bang-thank-you mam! I guarantee you'll need a time capsule to catch a better ballad performance than tonight's take on When Sunny Gets Blue. Maybe some early Art Pepper might offer a challenge - maybe ...

Although we're only a day short of twelfth night, I've already got four names pencilled in (4HB) for when the polls come around later.

It doesn't get any better than this. 

Lance

PS: I didn't catch all the titles - I was too engrossed in what I was hearing but the ones I did catch were: Splurge (George Garzone); Unconditional Love (Geri Allen); To Wisdom the Prize (Roy Hargrove);  a bopper that may have been called Elves Bop but probably wasn't and an original blues
dedicated to Joe Downard.