Bringing home the 26th annual Litchfield Jazz Festival is the outstanding pianist Emmet Cohen in a program featuring works from his award-winning album Future Stride. Cohen, at 30, is one of the few musicians undaunted by the blunt force the pandemic has 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 50 concerts produced and presented it from his Harlem livingroom. He calls it Live From Emmet’s Place. Offered free to the public every Monday night with his trio, and featuring guest 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, 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, is performing this Litchfield Fest finale in a reprise of his record release party (at home of course) this winter with Yasushi Nakamura on bass, Joe Saylor on drums and guests Ken Peplowski, and Benny Benack III on trumpet and voice. Cohen, who was a prodigy who began playing piano at age three, graduated from Frost School of Music in Miami and received his Masters from Manhattan School of Music. He found his footing in jazz, he says, while attending Litchfield Jazz Camp beginning at 15. There he set his sites on a career as a professional musician and never looked back.
Among his most striking accomplishments is a series of self-produced recordings he calls the Jazz Legacy Series featuring mentors in the field whose collaboration he secured for all time 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. More recently, another volume in the series has been released, this one featuring bassist Ron Carter with Cohen. In addition to the Trio, Emmet appears regularly with vocalist Veronica Swift and in Christian Mc Bride’s Tip City band and with Ron Carter and others.
Litchfield Jazz Festival will be live streamed on July 31, beginning at noon from Telefunken Soundstage. It is available without charge on YouTube and Facebook. Sponsors for the event include The National Endowment for The Arts, DownBeat Magazine, and Telefunken Soundstage.
