Friday – June 20

Emmet Cohen Trio with special guests The Four Freshmen
Adi Yeshaya Jazz Orchestra, feat Jennifer Grimm
Doreen’s Jazz New Orleans
Selby Avenue Brass Band with Thomasina Petrus
Las Guaracheras

Saturday – June 21

Catherine Russell
L.A. Buckner & Big Homie
Emmet Cohen Trio with special guests The Four Freshmen
Patty Peterson presents Jazz Women All Star
Society Of Chemists
Walker West & MacPhail Student Musicians
The Avant Garde
Drums of Navarone
Swinging Motown

From Thaddeus

Twin Cities Jazz Fest (Saturday, June 21)

Stephanie Wieseler of Society of Chemists

On the hottest day of the year (pushing up towards 100), there was plenty of free cool jazz across the Twin Cities as part of the annual Twin Cities Jazz Festival. In downtown St. Paul’s Mears Park, one of the biggest stages was set up and Society of Chemists got their hour (literally) in the sun.

Jazz 88 DJ Sean McPherson quickly introduced the band and also pointed out where water was available, as well where several nearby indoor venues were in case anyone got too hot. Society of Chemists is a quartet with composer Stephanie Wieseler mostly on saxophone, but also flute and keyboards. The other members are Jack Barrett on piano & keys, Charlie Bruber on stand up bass and electric bass, and Ben Ehrlich on drums. The jazz fusion band is led by Wieseler’s great sax work and it was tremendous to hear the group on the Jazz 88 Main Stage, with excellently managed sound, even in the windy conditions.

The song transactional kindness was a great starting place and is a new number from Wieseler, being released earlier in 2025. These are relatively short (at least for jazz) songs, but followed a classic formula of musically setting up with the lead instrument, then giving way to others for solos of their own. The foam on an earl gray latte (hope I got that title correct) had a more intense opening sax solo to start things off before transitioning to the piano. Coming back to a softer section on sax, the band was hitting their stride. With no pause, Society of Chemists started the third song with Wieseler switching to flute. This made a big change in the sound obviously, but kept in line with that more introspective, quieter feel.

As she switched back to sax, Wieseler did a quick introduction of the rest of the band. Next up was inquisitive apathy, which was a more aggressive number, with some strong stand up bass featured early and pounding piano. After that song, the bassist called for a band water break. But it should be noted, that even in the heat, Society of chemists played very well, which was no small feat. A long piano intro to the next number brought back that slower calmer tone, though it built up into a slightly frenzied finish.

Society of Chemists then plugged in, going into an electrified section for the rest of the set. Starting with Transparency, a Charlie Bruber composition, the stand up bass went to electric bass, piano went to keyboards, and even Wieseler sometimes on synth. it also had the most dynamic and longest drum solo of the set. Another Wieseler composition had some differing time signatures and just prior to starting, she asked the audience to see if they could tell where. Dear reader, I could not.

The band got to the song Society of Chemists. Faster out of the gate and the keyboards (rather than piano) was excellent in helping drive this forward. Great sax work up front really set the table for the keys solo in a brief but punchy song. They then went back to a quieter number that had the dual keyboards at play for a while. As we headed towards the last few songs, we got a lot less banter, but the music kept flowing. Society of Chemists were a lot of fun and kept their composure to the end, and were hopefully rewarded with getting to go inside and escape the heat. Which is what I did.

Partial set list:

transactional kindness
the foam on an earl gray tea latte
each season is a wonder
inquisitive apathy
forest walking, lingering in the evening’s dim
transparency
wonderment
Society of Chemists

On a balmy summer evening in downtown St. Paul the Twin Cities Jazz Festival kicked off its 27th year. Earlier in the week the Star and Tribune noted that the TCJF is bigger than the Taste of Minnesota and boasts more musical acts than the Minnesota Yacht Club. In fact, there were over eighty artists playing 20 venues over two days and a lot of it was free. So, it was my intention to catch five of these acts at Mears Park.

First up, Adi Yeshaya Jazz Orchestra with Jennifer Grimm. Although a local musician, Adi has a national presence as the go-to arranger for artists like Prince and Whitney Houston to Burt Bacharach and Lena Horne. He is also the musical arranger for the hit NBC show The Voice. For thirty years he was the musical director for Twin Cities local legend Debbie Duncan. Now he is working with another Twin Cities singer, Jennifer Grimm.

The orchestra started off with two Adi originals “Hi George” and “Time to Chill.” Then Jennifer stepped onto the stage dressed like she was ready for a South Carolina Cotillion. “I decided to dress up a bit,” she laughed, as they moved into Adi’s arrangement of “All of Me.”

Adi Yeshaya Jazz Orchestra with Jennifer Grimm

Jennifer and Adi have known each other for thirty years and when she joined the orchestra, Adi asked what would be their first song. Knowing that he worked with the hit-making legend, Jennifer asked for a Burt Bacharach arrangement. The song Adi picked was “Alfie” from the eponymous movie.

If you are in New York on August 24th and looking for some lush orchestral music, Adi and Jennifer will be at the Birdland.

Enough cannot be said about how smoothly the Twin Cities Jazz Festival runs. As soon as Adi and Jennifer ended their set, the announcer at the Jazz 88 Main Stage swung it over to the announcer at the Jazz on 5th Street Stage. And just like that the Selby Avenue Brass Band kicked off with a brassy, funky start.

Twin Cities Jazz Festival

Selby Avenue Brass Band with Thomasina Petrus

The musical director and man on tuba, Tom Wells, was a former high school music teacher in Minneapolis and he quickly brought up one of his former students (class of 88) Thomasina Petrus, and she was a live wire. She said that she is normally calm and collected, but “Once those horns start playing…”

There were original songs from Tom and Thomasina as well as a raunchy song about keys that wasn’t about keys. A highlight was “St. James Infirmary” which started with an appropriate dirge before picking up the pace with a Mardi Gras spirit until they picked up the pace even more with a blistering trombone solo and Thomasina scatting to the end.

If you are in Northfield, MN on August 2nd and need a quick jolt of energy, Tom and Thomasina will be at the Vintage Brass Band Festival.

Although there were no brass instruments, there was enough Dixieland Jazz spirit with Doreen’s Jazz New Orleans taking the main stage. Their musical leader, Doreen J. Ketchens aka Lady Louis on clarinet was joined on stage with Dorian L. Garner on drums, Leslie Martin on piano and Christian J. Mitchem on bass.

Doreen’s Jazz New Orleans

Twin Cities Jazz Festival

Doreen and her band have recorded 33 albums, played in 47 states and 24 countries. They’ve played for four presidents and after an interview with Ted Koppel, Doreen got her wish and played the Kennedy Center.

Doreen and her band started off with the spiritual “Lord You’ve Been So Good to Me.” Then it was set filled with too many highlights, ranging from “Caravan” to “Iko Iko” and don’t forget “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Then there was a rendition of “House of the Rising Sun” in which Doreen hoped her liver would hold as she launched into pyrotechnics on her clarinet sustaining one single note for as long as it takes to read this review.

If you are in New Orleans and want to hear Doreen’s Jazz New Orleans you can find her at 701 Royal Street every Friday-Sunday from 11am-1:30 pm. That’s if she’s in town.

New Orleans is pretty south of the Twin Cities, but the Twin Cities Jazz Festival stretched even further to Cali, Columbia to invite Las Guaracheras to the 5th Street Stage. They are a Latin Music sextet with Laura Linares on congas, Gina Botia on timbales, Elizabeth Muñóz on keys, Katherine Ortega on vibraphone, Daniela Vergara on bass and Diana Sánchez on lead vocals. If you would like to know more about them, they have a pretty cool website.

Las Guaracheras

Twin Cities Jazz Festival

The Las Guaracheras were by far the best dressed at the festival and they immediately turned 5th Street into a ballroom. People flooded the street to dance to salsa and rumba, and it was an absolutely joyful scene.

All the songs were in Spanish and in between songs Daniela spoke to the audience in Spanish, and a lot of the people in the street understood what she was saying. I picked up bits and pieces, but in my review notes there was only one word, the word being “Wow!” If music’s sole purpose is to lift people’s spirits and get them out of their seats, Las Guaracheras hit a home run.

If you happen to be in Kalispell, MT in the middle of winter and are looking to heat up your dancing legs, Las Guaracheras will be playing at the Wachold College Center on January 15th, 2026.

Already, the day had been a success and a personal musical highlight for the year, but the main reason I came to the Twin Cities Jazz Festival was to see the Friday night headliner, the Emmet Cohen Trio with The Four Freshman.

Actually, I came to see Emmet. I first caught him playing his piano when researching for an interview with Cyrille Aimée. And in the research, I watched Cyrille and Emmet play their rendition of “La Vie en Rose”, which to me seemed like lightning in a bottle.

That was my introduction, Cyrille and Emmet playing with his trio in his Harlem apartment, a place that Emmet used as a weekly concert venue during the pandemic when all venues were shuttered. An unusual place to put on a show, but not unheard of when musicians like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, heck any jazz musician on the NYC scene would stop by each others’ apartment to play, to learn to cross-pollinate and create a new sound.

Luckily, Emmet is on the road and playing bigger gigs, but Mears Park was just as cramped as his Harlem apartment when he and his trio took the stage with Kyle Pool on drums and Yasushi Nakamura on bass. They were there to support The Four Freshman, a singing quartet that began in 1948 when brothers, Don and Ross Barbour, joined forces with Hal Kratsch and their cousin Bob Flanigan. Seventy-seven years, 50 albums and 28 singers later, Jake Baldwin, Tommy Boynton, Bob Ferreira and Ryan Howe took the stage to highlight a collaboration they did with the Emmet Cohen Trio when they recorded enough music during the pandemic to release two separate albums.

Emmet Cohen Trio with The Four Freshmen

The Four Freshmen

The second volume is soon to be released, but there was plenty of music from the Volume No.1 as they sang songs from it to “Put on a Happy Face” and “Have You Met Miss Jones?”

It was a blast from the past and it felt like The Four Freshmen should have been wearing white dinner jackets and thin black bow ties while holding martinis. The crowd loved the retro sound. In fact, when they announced they were going to sing “When You’re Smiling” the guy in front of me shouted out “Oh Nice!” like he just won the lottery. Then there were more songs like the silky “Laura” and the song that put them on the map in 1952 “It’s a Blue World”.

The Four Freshmen then stepped off stage to let Emmet and his trio play their own music, and immediately the trio took off their dinner jackets and leaned into a more muscular sound.

More forceful on the keys, Emmet ran up and down the piano with block chords. Yasushi’s fingers jumped up and down the frets of his base, while Kyle looked to be in a trance as he pushed the tempo.

Emmet Cohen Trio

Twin Cities Jazz Festival

The rush of cascading notes was so overwhelming that a passing ambulance with sirens blaring somehow fit into the musical landscape that the trio were creating.

If you are near a computer or haven’t yet lost your phone, check out Emmet Cohen’s YouTube Channel for he’s still playing in his apartment with his trio, still inviting the who’s who of jazz music, and still letting you know that jazz is fun, especially if you are “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue.”