Paul Cornish and Gabrielle Cavassa at EFG London Jazz Festival

The Jazz Social, the EFG London Jazz Festival hangout just a few steps away from the Barbican, is now in its second year. This pop-up live venue, with live performances, one-off events, live radio broadcasts, interviews, and family-friendly events, and a specially curated Blue Note Records pop-up store, has proven to be a big success. Blue Note Records showcased two of their younger artists and recent signings last night. Paul Cornish, the Houston-born, LA-based pianist who played the festival last year in the band of Joshua Redman, just released his debut album “You’re Exaggerating!” this past August. Playing tracks from the album with just a bassist as accompaniment, he further cemented the fact that here is a serious musician with purely musical contours. The way he incorporated pre-recorded music like “If I Only Had A Brain” as an intro to his piano output, speaks for itself. I really like the idea of playing around with tempo and time and rhythm. One of my favorite tracks from the album, “Quienxiety”, a wonderful wordplay, was explained by him as an expression of calmness versus uproar, and it showed dramatically in his performance. He was also able to paint abstract harmonies and dynamics, like on his composition called “Modus Operandi” which featured some classical elements as well, expressively woven into the mix.

Singer Gabrielle Cavassa was next. She was featured on Joshua Redman’s 2023 Blue Note album “Where Are We” and also toured with him. You can also hear her on Joshua’s most recent album “Words Fall Short” on the enigmatic “Era’s End” which she featured in her set. Accompanied by guitar only, she opened her set with an interesting and arresting version of Burt Bacharach’s “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head”. Her voice is mostly crystal clear, but has these wonderful and attractive cracks where needed. She featured several tracks from her upcoming Blue Note debut album “Diavola”, to be released in April. “Angelo”, an eerie and almost forlorn cover of an Italian pop song, was one of the highlights of her set as was a bossa nova-tinged tune. Her guitarist, which she met just a couple days prior to the performance, came up with highly imaginative and almost avantgarde-ish chords and progressions. It seems as if Gabrielle can tackle anything she wants, no matter if it’s a standard (“Prisoner Of Love”) or a downright dirty blues tune with which she finished the evening. It’s going to be her year next year.