THE COOKERS / CAPE MAY CONVENTION HALL / SATURDAY, 3:45PM
The Story
A bona fide supergroup, each a bandleader in his own right, The Cookers came together in 2007 and have released six smoking albums to date. With collective bandstand experience that includes working with such icons as Art Blakey, Lee Morgan, Max Roach, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Freddie Hubbard and Herbie Hancock, The Cookers have been hailed for their commitment to straight ahead jazz while pushing the music forward with an adrenalized intensity. These elder statesmen in jazz today — alto saxophonist Donald Harrison, trumpeters Eddie Henderson and David Weiss, pianist George Cables, bassist Cecil McBee, drummer Billy Hart — play passionate, high-energy post-bop in the tradition of such groups as Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers and Horace Silver’s ‘60s ensembles. And they do it with an unrelenting commitment marked by killer instincts and pyrotechnic playing. Hence, the name.
Their 2010 debut, Cast the First Stone, was an iron fist upside the head of complacency. And they followed with equally hard-hitting manifestos like 2011’s The Warriors, 2012’s Believe, 2014’s Time and Time Again and 2021’s aptly-named Look Out! And the reviews are in:
“Player for player, there’s no better working band in jazz than The Cookers” — Andrew Gilbert, The Boston Globe
“A dream team of forward-leaning hard-bop” — Nate Chinen, The New York Times
“A remarkable band at the height of its collective powers.” — Chris Waddington, The Times-Picayune
Or as The Los Angeles Times’ Chris Barton so aptly put it: “This hard-hitting septet wears its name like a mission statement. The group might reference the past by name, but it never sounds less than current.”
The Sound
Expect The Cookers to revive classics like “Double or Nothing” from Time and Time Again and the surging “Free For All” from Believe while also presenting newer material, like George Cables’ bristling “The Mystery of Monifa Brown” from their latest album, Look Out!
