Like hundreds of other music fans, I first heard Samara Joy at Emmet's Place, an internet jazz haven that has been providing a gentle stream of soul-invigorating music for the reason that early months of the pandemic.
Created by award-winning pianist Emmet Cohen following New York City's shutdown in March 2020, the continuing series has change into an extension of the town's jazz scene, with outstanding production values that bring viewers right into their living rooms. The first session with Joy, “Live From Emmet's Place Vol. 67,” was livestreamed from his home studio in Harlem on August 23, 2021 and has amassed greater than 200,000 views on YouTube.
Although she was hardly unknown on the time—she had won the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition two years earlier—Joy had not yet begun racking up the Grammy Awards that catapulted her to stardom, or top-notch performances like her four-night run on the SFJAZZ Center on May 16-19. “The best thing about it is that people from all over the world who can't experience a jazz club near them can hang out here,” said Cohen, 33. “People all over the world have come to 'Emmet's Place' whether they're there Gather live and join the chat or watch them later.”
He distributed the broadcast this month to the young, Juilliard-trained New Jazz Underground trio as he embarks on a tour that will take him to a three-day performance at UC Davis' Mondavi Center with his organ quartet May 16-18 trumpeter Benny Benack III, tenor saxophonist Ruben Fox and drummer Kyle Poole.
“I'm a big fan of Jimmy Smith, Brother Jack McDuff, Dr. Lonnie Smith and Joey DeFrancesco, who was a friend,” Cohen, 33, said as he name-checked jazz’s greatest Hammond B3 practitioners at Mount Rushmore. “I can have the horns in front with this group. I love the freedom of controlling the bass section. We can explore tempos and keys, starting with one melody and ending with another.”
His Bay Area appearance with his piano trio with Poole and bass maestro Rueben Rogers includes a Sunday afternoon concert at the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, a Monday night at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center and an eight-show, four-night residency at SFJAZZ's Joe Henderson Center Laboratory from May 23rd to 26th.
All performances are sold out, but the Bach concert and Joe Henderson Lab set on May 24 at 7 p.m. will conveniently be livestreamed. Whether in person or online, he is a gracious host, fluent in a centuries-old set of piano phrases, including the sophisticated stride style perfected at Harlem gatherings to raise money for tenants.
“That’s the mythology,” Cohen said. “I live on Edgecombe Avenue, where all my piano heroes used to have rent parties in Harlem a century ago. There is a spiritual weight to what we do.”
For Cohen, Emmet's Place is more than just a place to stay. “For me it has become a documentary effort, trying to capture all the musicians who make up the scene and are able and willing to be a part of it,” he said.
The need to document the scene and connect with previous generations is the driving force behind Cohen's other major initiative: performing and recording with the improvisers who have shaped jazz since the mid-20th century.
His “Masters Legacy Series” includes albums with the late drummer Jimmy Cobb, bassist Ron Carter and saxophonist George Coleman, all of whom recorded classic albums with Miles Davis. Cohen's fifth and most recent “Legacy Series” project came out last fall and wowed soul-soaked tenor saxophonist Houston Person (still going strong at 89) at the Healdsburg Jazz Festival's Juneteenth celebration on June 15 and June 16 at the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society appears). He leads a quintet with the independent alto saxophonist Eric Person).
The time he spent with another jazz legend made his final performance at the SFJAZZ Center in 2019 particularly memorable, when pianist Ahmad Jamal played at Miner Auditorium and they met for dinner after the concert.
“He’s one of my heroes,” Cohen said. “My interests range from Jelly Roll Morton, Earl “Fatha” Hines and Fats Waller to Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Brad Mehldau. I love finding common ground between them and everyone in between.”
EMMET COHEN
With organ quartet: 7:30 p.m. 16-18 May; Mondavi Center Vanderhoef Studio Theater, UC Davis; $45; www.mondaviarts.org
With the Emmet Cohen Trio: 4:30 p.m., May 19, Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, Half Moon Bay; $45-55 (live stream $10); bachddsoc.org; 7:00 p.m., May 20 at Kuumbwa Jazz Center; $44; www.kuumbwajazz.org; 23-26 May at SFJAZZ Center; $35; www,sfjazz.org.
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