Litchfield Jazz Festival celebrates 26 years on July 31 coming to you live from Telefunken Soundstage in South Windsor, CT.  The live stream is free and available on line. Bringing home the fest at 4:30 is a 90 minute set by is the outstanding pianist Emmet Cohen in a program he’s calling Future Stride for the album of the same name, his maiden voyage for Mack Avenue Records.  David Gelly of The Guardian wrote of this debut: This young pianist-composer (now 31; he was just 30 at the time) revisits the stride piano sound of the roaring 20s on a set of classics and originals with charm to spare. (He takes the music) … from tinkling lightness to thunderous roar and back again” with surprise endings that make you laugh.

For this the Litchfield Jazz Fest live presentation, he is joined by Joe Saylor on drums and Yasushi Nakamura on bass and special guests and Benny Bennack III on trumpet and voice. Joe Saylor is best known these days for his role as percussionist in Jonathan Batiste’s Stay Human, the house band for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Educated at Berklee and Juilliard, Saylor has worked with Wynton Marsalis, Joe Lovano, Roy Hargrove, Slide Hampton and others. An educator as well as a performer, he conducts workshops for Stanford University and has appeared at venues as rarified as the White House.  Yasushi Nakamura came to the US from Tokyo at age 9. A graduate of both Berklee and Juilliard Schools, he has collaborated with Wynton Marsalis, Wycliffe Gordon, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Hank Jones, Dave Douglas, Joe Lovano, and more and performs often with Emmet Cohen. He is an active educator for Juilliard, the New School and Koyo Conservatory.  Trumpeter Benny Benack III, from a long line of Pittsburgh musicians, was a finalist in the 2014 Thelonious Monk Competition and winner of the 2011 Carmine Caruso International Trumpet Competition. He plays for Postmodern Jukebox, the vintage music collective, and in the bands of Christian McBride and Josh Groban. He also leads workshops for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Jazz For Young People programs.

Emmet Cohen is one of the few musicians undaunted by the blunt force the pandemic had on so many of his peers. Instead of folding his tent, he invited just about everyone under it.  He has built a program now in its second year with over 57 concerts and counting, one every Monday night, presented it from his Harlem, New York, living room.  He calls it Live From Emmet’s Place. Offered free to the public, Cohen, Hall and Poole provide the rhythm section backing artists of every stripe, from long-established musicians like clarinetist Ken Peplowski and singer Catherine Russell to successful newcomers like Veronica Swift. Drawing many hundreds of viewers from around the world (occasionally in excel of a thousand) at each outing, he is also drawing funding to support the work of the many artists he presents from his viewers and an increasing number of sponsors.  So successful has his marketing been, he’s been invited to teach his approach in colleges around the country.

Cohen, who like Fortner won the prestigious Cole Porter Fellowship, was a prodigy who began playing piano at age three. He received his undergraduate degree from Frost School of Music in Miami and his Masters from Manhattan School of Music.  He found his footing in jazz, he says, while attending Litchfield Jazz Camp beginning at 15 and decided then and there he’d be a pro and never looked back.

In addition to his Trio work, Emmet appears regularly with vocalist Veronica Swift, in Christian Mc Bride’s Tip City band and with Ron Carter. He has a regular weekly gig on the organ at Smoke jazz club in New York whenever he is in town and not touring the world.

Among his most laudable projects is a series of self-produced recordings begun in 2017 called the  Jazz Master’s  Legacy Series. It features mentors whose collaboration Cohen secured for the benefit of future audiences. For some of these and for some of us, it was just in time. Since their albums were released, both Jimmy Heath and Jimmy Cobb have died. Other volumes feature saxophonist and composer George Coleman, drummer Tootie Heath and bassist Ron Carter.

Litchfield Jazz Festival caps off a season of free live stream concerts from Telefunken, titled Litchfield Jazz Presents, Fall and Spring mini sessions (6 Saturdays each)  of Litchfield Jazz Camp virtual instruction, and the annual Litchfield Jazz Camp, live once again this summer for two weeks at The Fredrick Gunn School in Washington CT. Faculty concerts will be streamed live to the public most weeknights until we can invite the public in once more next summer. Litchfield Jazz Fest is available on YouTube and Facebook or simply visit the Litchfield Jazz Festival website shortly before the show for a link.  The Litchfield Jazz Festival is sponsored by Litchfield Performing Arts/Litchfield Jazz Members and by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Connecticut Department of Economic Development’s Office of the Arts.