Got a craving for a night of tasty post-bop jazz? Head on over to Flato Markham Theatre on April 5, 2025, when all-star septet The Cookers will serve up a menu of muscular musicianship and incandescent improvisation.
Experience counts, especially in jazz. The more time musicians spend interpreting tunes and interacting with others, the more articulation an audience can expect. And this veteran ensemble — Eddie Henderson, David Weiss, Donald Harrison, George Cables, Cecil McBee and Billy Hart — boast over 250 years and 1,000 albums of combined experience. You can hear it all in the expressive language The Cookers bring to the bandstand and to their six critically acclaimed recordings: Warriors, Cast the First Stone, Believe, Time And Time Again (iTunes Jazz CD Of The Year in 2014), The Call Of The Wild And Peaceful Heart and Look Out! The Cookers summon up an aggressive spirit with a potent collection of expansive post-bop originals marked by all the requisite killer instincts and pyrotechnic playing expected of some of the heaviest hitters on the scene today.
Henderson, McBee, Cables and Hart all came up in the heady era of the mid-’60s. It was a period that found the dimensions of hard bop morphing from their original designs, and each of these guys helped facilitate the process as members of some of the most important bands of the era. Hart and Henderson were members of Herbie Hancock’s groundbreaking Mwandishi group; McBee anchored Charles Lloyd’s quartet alongside Keith Jarrett and Jack DeJohnette; Harper was part of Lee Morgan’s last group, as well as being a member of Max Roach’s quartet and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers; Cables held down the piano chair in numerous bands including groups led by Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Dexter Gordon and Art Pepper. Weiss and Harrison, the youngest members of the band, are no slouches, having performed with Blakey, Hancock, Hubbard, Bobby Hutcherson, Charles Tolliver and Roy Haynes.
Each member of The Cookers has also led his own groups — and each has a keenly individual sound. But it’s the unmistakable power of teamwork that makes this music so commanding and resonant, with a depth and beauty that speak to the seasoned track record of its principals. Since 2007, they have performed at venues around the world, including the Newport Jazz Festival, New Orleans Jazz Fest, Monterey Jazz Festival, Playboy Jazz Festival, Vancouver Jazz Festival, Umbria Jazz Festival, Northsea Jazz Festival, Jazz a Vienne, London Jazz Festival, San Sebastein Jazz Festival, Detroit Jazz Festival, Chicago Jazz Festival, Portland Jazz Festival, San Jose Jazz Festival, The Jerusalem Jazz Festival, The Guinness Cork Jazz Festival, The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, Jazz in Marciac, The Burghausen Jazz Festival, Jazz Terrassa, The Healdsburg Jazz Festival, Jazz Viersen, Ronnie Scott’s, SF Jazz, Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola and Yoshi’s.
Listen to The Cookers below, get tickets for their show HERE, and feast your eyes on their website, Twitter and Facbook.
