(upbeat music) (upbeat jazz music) - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato and I'm clearly overdressed for this segment, we are honored to be joined by Emmet Cohen, leader of the Emmet Cohen Trio and jazz pianist and composer.
Check it out, Emmet Cohen, Uptown in Orbit.
We just listened to a little bit of that.
Emmet, how you doing?
- I'm great, Steve.
It's nice to see you, a fellow New Jerseyan here.
So I feel the kinship.
- Wait a minute, where are you from originally?
- Originally I was born in Miami, Florida, but I went to high school in Montclair, New Jersey, middle school, - Montclair.
- So.
- That's my town.
It's a great town, it's a great artistic town as well.
- It is.
Hey, tell folks about this CD.
- Uptown and Orbit, we released it in October.
It's kind of our final project I would like to say from the pandemic time.
During the pandemic, we had a live stream called Live From Emmet's Place.
That started out as just something that we did on the phone, ended up reaching millions of people worldwide and, - How?
I'm curious about that.
I'm curious about what connects, what doesn't, and why.
What do you think triggered, what do you think connected.
- I think that jazz is meant to bring people together and we were missing that aspect of life very heavily in March, 2020.
So we ended up doing this live stream.
We invited everyone into our living room virtually and it took off across the world.
And I just got back from Korea.
People said, "I've watched all 103 episodes."
There, "Everything was great, you saved us during the pandemic."
So it was this cool way to connect the world in that time.
And we're doing it right from Harlem and there's a history of Harlem rent party.
So 100 years ago they were doing this right on the same very block that I live, and Duke Ellington lived right on that street.
There's a lot of mythology and I think that's part of what helped to take off as well.
- Let me ask you about this.
We do a series called "Remember Them", which is, it features people who have, are no longer with us but made a great impact and Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie and a whole range of other people being featured.
Harlem is a huge part of that, particularly when you talk about the arts community and jazz.
How did you wind up in Harlem?
- I moved to Harlem when I decided I wanted to move to New York City.
You know, you look around where people are living and where the jazz musicians are, it's either Brooklyn or Harlem.
And if you choose Brooklyn, then you go for the tattoo and the mustaches.
And if you go to Harlem, it's a little more, (laughs) it's a little different vibe, but I ended up there.
I went to Manhattan School of Music, which is a college up on 122nd Street so that helped me enter there.
But I have a whole community up there, so many different kinds of artists.
And it's just like a real fertile place especially I noticed during the pandemic.
- Hmm.
What is the Master Legacy series?
- I believe that there is not enough intergenerational play in life.
I think it's one of the things that jazz helps us with and teaches us is that the relationship between the generations is really, really important.
And so I got to know a couple of jazz masters and I realized in order to carry this music forward I would need to spend time around the oldest living jazz musicians.
Play with Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and Billie Holiday, and were around all that.
So I decided to create a forum where I could bring my entire generation together with 80 and 90 year old musicians, play with them, record with them, interview them, learn from them, and then be able to pass the baton, which I, now I'm 32 and there's musicians under me which I'm able to share that information with as well.
So it's the cycle of life.
- Emmet, I'm curious about this.
You're not just a great musician but, how many do, a hundred and how many live streams?
- We did 103, two hour live streams so far.
- So there's a lot of conversation going on.
Your skills as a public communicator outside of the way you communicate with your music, you're really good.
Where does that come from?
- I think it comes from loving people and wanting to see humanity be more connected and be better as a whole.
And through my music, I've realized that when we travel people take their lone Saturday night to come out and see us.
They've been working all week.
All they're looking for is that connection, to see something great, - Right.
- something that means something more to them.
And music is the perfect mirror, and music and communication.
So if I can communicate to these people and help them see part of themselves to either grow, become a different person or a better person, or to help them in some way in their lives, we're healers.
That's what we do as communicators.
- You know, it's one thing to ask you about your communication skills and your love of people, but to develop what you did during the pandemic Emmet, to create those live streams, to create this audience, to be able to make a living, to be able to put a trio together, to market it, to get it out into the marketplace.
You're an entrepreneur as well.
I'm fascinated by the work of those who are in the arts.
I like to, again, I keep calling this media arts but then there's really art and then there's this, what I do.
But if you're not an entrepreneur, I always wonder how people think they're going to get their stuff out there if you are not, I'll get off my soapbox, an incredibly committed entrepreneur, you are.
- Yeah, I realized when I first started touring and bringing my trio out, we played in the piano store in Chicago for six people.
And I said, if I don't change something we're gonna be playing for six people forever.
And one of the things that I started to do was collect information, collect email addresses, collect.
Everyone who said, "Good job."
I would just kind of try to stay in touch.
And that's really what social media is.
It's people that are interested in what you're doing.
They wanna stay in touch with you, they want to hear from you and if you maintain that relationship in whatever form that is.
Then when the pandemic happened, I was able to kind of of reach out and say, "Hey, we're doing these projects."
Was able to crowdsource a little bit, raise money each week, sponsorship for these things.
And you know, what helped me really buckle down and do it was that it wasn't only for me, it was for all these musicians who needed it really badly in this time when our calendar was completely cleared and it was like, what are we gonna do now?
Well, we're gonna do what we know how to do best which is play music and then all the other stuff can come in that entrepreneurial fashion.
- Well, we're glad that you're a great entrepreneur, a great communicator, but especially a terrific musician and an artist.
Emmet Cohen, the leader of the Emmet Cohen Trio, jazz pianist composer, Uptown in Orbit, check it out.
This is part of our Arts Connection series.
Emmet, wish you all the best, thank you.
- Steve, thank you so much, it's great to be here.
And I wanna invite you up to the house in Harlem sometime.
You gotta come by and check out one of our shows.
- I don't have to dress up like this, right?
- You can wear whatever you'd like.
- I just wanna make sure, next time do me a favor, wear a suit.
Nah, I'm joking.
(Emmet laughs) You look great, I can't pull that off, you can.
Thanks, stay with us, we'll be right back.
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