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Emmet Cohen's piano solo on Charlie Parker's Billie's Bounce is the ninth and final solo in this WBGO broadcast concert. He takes ten choruses of the 12-bar blues at 231 BPM, the tempo having pushed slightly from Aldana's preceding eleven-chorus tenor saxophone statement. Cohen's extended blues solo serves as the concert's closing improvisational statement, drawing on the full range of blues piano tradition from bebop to post-bop while maintaining the rhythmic drive and harmonic invention that characterize his playing throughout the program. The ten-chorus length matches the scale of Aldana's solo, making the Billie's Bounce performance a substantial closing dialogue between the concert's two principal soloists.
Emmet Cohen was 30 to 31 years old at the time.
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