Dom Pipkin, Voodoo Lounge, upstairs in Ronnie Scott's

When a lot of places are shut or having to resort to streaming and folks are staying home due to Covid you have got to search mighty hard for the real McCoy. When you find it, what a joy. Happen when you venture out a night of deep New Orleans …

Published: 8 Dec 2020. Updated: 3 years.

When a lot of places are shut or having to resort to streaming and folks are staying home due to Covid you have got to search mighty hard for the real McCoy. When you find it, what a joy.

Happen when you venture out a night of deep New Orleans blues awaits – such a night – you may well consider yourself very fortunate indeed to clamber up the stairs at Ronnie Scott's to the voodoo lounge and count your lucky stars.

Beginning with Jelly Roll Morton, later Allen Toussaint and other New Orleans classics, 'Careless Love' early on was fine and mellow but there was much bounty to come oh yes and more.

Pipkin, in thrall to Jon Cleary, and to James Booker and to Fats Domino, the Englishman has a fine voice, a sort of a bluesy alto and a wonderful intuitive piano style: rolling. His album C'mon Sunshine (Hambone) is out at the minute and the singer-pianist played a few of his own songs among the classics. Pick of the night? Without a shadow of a doubt Pipkin's cultured take on the butterfly master James Booker's 'Classified'. Stunning sounds on a blue Monday as Soho slumbered. What a left hand. Dom Pipkin, above upstairs in Ronnie Scott's. Photo: marlbank

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Emmet Cohen streaming this week as countdown to the tantalising Future Stride continues

Streaming on Facebook tomorrow Emmet Cohen with Warren Wolf, Russell Hall and Kyle Poole is a must. Why? Well Wolf is one of the greatest modern mainstream vibists alive and Cohen himself is on a roll. Because as previously looked forward to in …

Published: 7 Dec 2020. Updated: 3 years.

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Streaming on Facebook tomorrow Emmet Cohen with Warren Wolf, Russell Hall and Kyle Poole is a must. Why? Well Wolf is one of the greatest modern mainstream vibists alive and Cohen himself is on a roll. Because as previously looked forward to in these pages Cohen has a Mack Avenue release Future Stride to be issued on 29 January and with him are bassist Hall, drummer Poole, trumpeter Marquis Hill and saxophonist Melissa Aldana. What we have heard so far is pretty tasty to say the least.

What is in store on the album includes a trio treatment of 'Dardanella,' a song that dates back however in a very different vocals incarnation to at least 1920 and whose later versions most relevantly include a dazzling solo piano treatment by Art Tatum in the late-40s, and is streaming ahead of Future Stride's release. Cohen's style ingredients in this instance dart progressively on within the prism of his own sound. If you like Adam Makowicz on the Tatum side and Cohen's label mate Aaron Diehl in terms of a roster then discover Emmet Cohen for sure on your way to the Harlem heritage heard in his sound explored on the album.