Sometimes the word ‘supergroup’ is just unavoidable. No matter which way round you want to call it, ‘band’ or “all-star” line-up, just won’t do. The Cookers, who return to London for two dates next week, is definitely and unashamedly a supergroup. And, into the bargain, it’s an aggregation that digs deep into the heartland of hard bop without coming off second best. It pays tribute but there’s no cynicism involved and the band members contribute tunes that stand up well on their own merits as well as returning to some of their own compositions from differing times in their own careers as leaders.

The Cookers take their name from a Freddie Hubbard double LP set The Night of the Cookers: Live at Club La Marchal, which the late great trumpeter recorded in Brooklyn with fellow horn man the jazz clubbers-favourite Lee Morgan, James Spaulding (who guested on Gregory Porter’s Water more recently), Harold Mabern Jr, Larry Ridley, Pete LaRoca and Big Black back in 1965 for Blue Note records. Trumpeter and bandleader David Weiss, who was a friend and playing colleague of Hubbard’s in the latter years of his life, put The Cookers together partly in name at least to pay homage to Hubbard and the music he stood for, but also as a showcase for some fine players who have the right chemistry as well as the supreme musicianship to play in a band together. As Tony Hall has written in Jazzwise: “If you wondered what has happened to all the passion and intensity, once such essential ingredients of great swinging jazz and now virtually non-existent in so much of today’s outpourings, you’ll find it all in The Cookers.”

With Weiss there’s ‘conscious’ tenor saxophone hero Billy Harper, trumpeter Eddie Henderson of Mwandishi fame, tenor saxophonist Craig Handy, like Henderson known for his work with Herbie Hancock and who has played with David Weiss in their own band, classy pianist George Cables who played keyboards on the Hubbard album Liquid Love in the 1970s, legendary Charles Lloyd Quartet bassist Cecil McBee, and the great drummer Billy Hart, like Henderson a stalwart of Herbie’s Mwandishi band in the 70s.

The great thing about hard bop as opposed to certain period styles, and the UK’s Empirical prove this as an example that springs immediately to mind, is that the style is adaptable enough to not sound terribly dated when young players come to it with their own ideas. Compare it to say early jazz styles from the 1930s and 40s like stride, boogie-woogie or swing, even orthodox bebop, and you’ll get the idea. And when the veterans play it: you’re into another dimension. Hard bop always sounded modern and when its main building blocks are put into a blender with the passage of time and new twists as the active ingredients it always comes up trumps. Players like the members of The Cookers were never ones to stick to the orthodox in any case, and that’s partly why their London shows are so exciting a prospect. If you’re going along, keep an ear out to see if they play ‘The Core’ from their ear-catching album Warriors, and Harper’s ‘Capra Black’ the spiritual title-track from his famous thought provoking black consciousness album.

– Stephen Graham

The Cookers play Ronnie Scott’s in Soho on Tuesday 21 February and Wednesday 22 February. For tickets go to www.ronniescotts.co.uk 

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