The Cookers

The Cookers, the magnificient seven of hard bop, are in concert tonight with a new album. Billy Harper, Cecil McBee, Georges Cables, Eddie Henderson and Billy Hart started out working in music in the mid-'60s, when they changed the dimensions of hard bop, and every one of them – within their respective bands – helped the process along the way. Hart and Henderson were members of the innovative group Mwandishi along with Herbie Hancock; McBee was in Charles Lloyd's quartet along with Keith Jarret and Jack DeJohnette; Harper worked in Lee Morgan's last band and was a member of the Max Roach quartet as well as Art Blakey's Messengers; while Cables worked in bands alongside Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Dexter Gordon and Art Pepper. The youngest members of the band, David Weiss and Donald Harrison, have experience working with Art Blakey, Bobby Hutcherson, Freddie Hubbard, Charles Tollivier, Roy Haynes and Herbie Hancock. Adding up the careers of all seven members of The Cookers, you're looking at 250 years of experience in the world of jazz, and more than 1,000 recordings under their belt.