Emmet Cohen Trio @ Ronnie Scott's - Oct. 13

Emmet Cohen (piano); Yasushi Nakamura (double bass); Kyle Poole (drums) + Ruben Fox (tenor sax)

For more than a year Emmet Cohen has been streaming concerts on a weekly basis from his New York City apartment. Live from Emmet's Place has become required viewing. Now, as international travel has become somewhat easier, pianist Cohen is once again on the road. A European tour itinerary included a stop off at Ronnie Scott's. Turning onto Frith Street a queue stretched out onto the pavement for the first of two houses. The sense of anticipation was palpable, people had been waiting a long time for this moment.

Cohen received a hero's welcome and that was before our man played a note! Fellow NYC residents Yasushi Nakamura and Kyle Poole are accompanying Cohen on this European trip and they too were made to feel right at home. Wow! Were we really about to hear these guys play? Dreams can come true! Online from NYC Cohen made it look so easy, same thing here at Ronnie's. The Frith Street faithful whooped and hollered, including Trinity Laban students there to hear one of the great pianists of our time. 

Cohen was the big attraction but, boy, Nakamura and Poole are themselves box office material. Tin Tin Deo dazzled with the trio's musicianship out of this world, Nakamura's solo had to be heard to be believed. Bud Powell's I'll Keep Loving You, Horace Silver's The Back Beat, the suggestion of a lineage was all too apparent. Uptempo numbers incorporating innumerable, fleeting quotes...Duke, a hint of Monk, the facility of Oscar P, the elegance of Shearing, was that Somewhere over the? No matter, it's gone, no time to think, all of it quite breathtaking. The trio couldn't have been tighter, the result of countless hours working together, Nakamura and Poole (a master of the brushes) negotiating every twist and turn in the arrangements. Listening to the Emmet Cohen Trio like this was an absolute privilege. 

Cohen spoke about his NYC based musician friends. One of them, Ruben Fox, emerged from Tomorrow's Warriors and numerous Late Shows here at Ronnie's before relocating to the Big Apple. The pandemic saw Fox return to London. Cohen remarked he hadn't seen his friend for something like eighteen months...until this evening. Yes, Ruben Fox, tenor sax in hand, joined Emmet, Yasushi and Kyle to close the show. Jimmy McHugh's Don't Blame Me featured Fox's exquisite, breathy Ben Webster-like tenor. 

It had been a fabulous early show. As the audience made its way out onto the street, second house ticket holders were queueing at the door. They were in for a treat - Russell