By: Rudy Lu

The Cookers have been together for 17 years and have produced 6 recordings. They drew on those recordings to perform 2 sets of music.

The members are all veterans of the world Jazz scene. Their age ranges from 50 (Jeremy Pelt) to 91 (Cecil McBee). All of them have had bands of their own and drew on their knowledge and experience to produce complex yet accessible compositions for the listening public with plenty of room for solos.

Five of the six compositions were original.

First Set:

Opening were pianist George Cables compositions, “The Mystery of Monifa Brown” and “Blackfoot”. These compositions gave plenty of room for trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, alto saxophonist Craig Handy and tenor saxophonist Azar Lawrence to stretch. George Cables himself showed his mastery of the piano and why Art Pepper nicknamed him “Mr. Beautiful” when he was Art’s piano player during Art’s final years.

The closer was a Cecil McBee ballad entitled “Peacemaker”. The virtuosity was there but was subtle in nature. The Billy Hart thunder was quieted down with his brush and mallet work.

2nd set:

The second set opened with David Weiss’ composition” Three Fall”. David has an unusual style in playing his trumpet which is using facing downward both muted and unmuted. This is in contrast to Jeremy Pelt’s playing. There was fascinating play between dynamics and pace with this composition.

Another Cecil McBee Ballad “Close To You Alone” , was played into hello territory by Craig Handy’s wild solos.

The closer was Freddie Hubbard’s “The Core” which featured an extended drum solo by the seemingly unfatigued Billy Hart. The band slowly came together again for a final coda.

As the great baritone saxophone player described it, a jazz performance is like a live science experiment, it can go in any direction.

This was certainly true of this performance, there seemed to be some missed cues of ending solos that were quickly covered by the band.

The next science experiment of the series will be on 10.30 is an appearance by the legendary Ernie Watts who will be flying in from the left coast.

Band

George Cables-piano

Cecil McBee- bass

Billy Hart-drums

Azar Lawrence- tenor sax

Craig Handy-alto sax

David Weiss-trumpet

Jeremy Pelt -trumpet