By Michael J. West | Published August 2025
Nobody reading this review needs me to tell them that drummer Joe Farnsworth has made an album of straightahead, hard-driving swing. Moreover, the names that appear on The Big Room’s cover below Farnsworth’s — trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, altoist Sarah Hanahan, vibist Joel Ross, pianist Emmet Cohen and bassist Yasushi Nakamura — guarantee it’ll be a barn burner.
What you really want to know is how they all sound when they come together. Let’s just say it’s a good thing this is a studio record. The level of energy and excitement they generate would be dangerous in a crowded club.
That doesn’t just apply on the uptempo numbers. Of course, those would be enough. The screaming relay race that Cohen, Pelt, Ross Hanahan and Farnsworth run on “You Already Know” is alone worth the price of admission. (That’s to say nothing of “Radical’s” slow-burn friction.) It’s how they turn up the heat while the velocity’s down that truly makes the album. Consider “I Fall In Love Too Easily,” Pelt leading the melody over Ross and the rhythm section, the latter characterized by Farnsworth’s punctilious brushwork. It’s as tender and vulnerable as any jazz reading of the Styne-Cahn ballad, yet, seemingly unconsciously, when the bridge arrives everyone puts just a hint more muscle into their line. Ross, then Cohen, channel that infinitesimal oomph into suddenly all-but-jaunty solos. This isn’t repeated on the date’s other ballad, “What Am I Waiting For” — but there’s an explosive tension in Pelt and Hanahan’s controlled call-and-response; it feels like it could burst at any moment.
Steam also rises from the medium-tempo “All Said And Done,” Ross submitting a particularly fine solo. It turns to smoke on the boogaloo closer “Prime Time,” where it’s Hanahan who shines brightest, with Cohen not far behind. The Big Room simply never lets up.
