Straight No Chaser – 2023
Emmet Cohen and Charles McPherson
A joyful jam by the altoist, trumpeter Bruce Harris, and Cohen’s trio
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Pianist Emmet Cohen’s weekly online performances have done a great deal to help jazz, both during and after the pandemic.
He and his trio welcome different guests each week.
With bassist Phillip Norris and drummer Kyle Poole, Cohen featured the great veteran altoist Charles McPherson and trumpeter Bruce Harris on one of the shows.
Cohen brings in Thelonious Monk’s “Straight No Chaser” (purposely hinting at Monk), and then McPherson shows immediately that he was still at the peak of his powers, really tearing into the Monk blues.
Bruce Harris takes a creative and fluent solo, Cohen stretches out (quoting “Walkin'” and emulating a hyper Bobby Timmons at one point), and Norris and Poole get their spots before the joyous performance concludes.
-Scott Yanow
Ella Fitzgerald