october 1, 2026thursday
New York Blues Hall of Famer guitarist, singer and songwriter Chris Bergson brings an all-star band to The Pocket for a night of incendiary New York blues and soul featuring legendary drummer Bernard Purdie, 4x Blues Music Award nominee pianist/singer Dave Keyes, acclaimed soul singer Ellis Hooks and premier bassist Matt Clohesy.
“Chris Bergson plays the kind of guitar you can build a house on – it’s B.B. meets Steve Cropper meets John Scofield.” says ROLL Magazine. Hailed as “the New York street poet with a blues soul” (MOJO) and “one of the most inventive songwriters in modern blues music,” (All Music Guide) Bergson is best known as the leader of the Chris Bergson Band who Elmore Magazine calls “one of the most talented bands playing today…from blazing rock to funk to soul to Delta blues and all that’s in between.” Bergson is also an Associate Professor of Guitar at Berklee College of Music and an accomplished sideman who’s performed with luminaries across a wide range of genres including Norah Jones, Levon Helm of The Band and Howlin’ Wolf guitarist Hubert Sumlin. The Chris Bergson Band’s latest album Comforts of Home with special guests Bernard Purdie and Dave Keyes received Four Stars in MOJO and was named one of Soul Bag magazine’s Best Albums of 2024. Bergson’s 2026 solo release East River Blues features the singer/guitarist backed by the all-star rhythm section of bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Herlin Riley. The UK’s Blues Matters calls it “a record steeped in after-hours soul, jazz-club cool and the kind of hard-earned musical maturity you cannot fake. Bergson’s guitar work is masterfully understated throughout, as it is soulful, economical and deeply melodic…Bergson has crafted a blues album defined not by excess but by nuance, feel and quiet mastery.”
Legendary drummer Bernard “Pretty” Purdie has worked with over 2500 artists and played on over 4000 albums including anchoring classic recordings by Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Ray Charles, Joe Cocker, Hall and Oates, B.B. King, Dr. John, Roberta Flack, Donny Hathaway, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis. His signature “Purdie Shuffle” is featured on Steely Dan’s “Babylon Sisters” and “Home At Last.” At age 87, the master drummer shows no signs of slowing down with recent appearances with Vulfpeck at Madison Square Garden and performing with his own band Bernard Purdie and Friends at the Newport Jazz Festival this past July.
Native New Yorker, keyboardist, singer and songwriter, Dave Keyes, is a 40 year veteran of the Blues and American Roots music scenes. The 4x Blues Music Award nominee has performed extensively with bluesman Popa Chubby and R&R queen Ronnie Spector plus lengthy stints with such iconic and varied artists as Odetta, David Johansen, Bo Diddley, rockabilly legend Sleepy LaBeef and gospel great Marie Knight. Keyes’ latest album Two Trains featuring special guest Bernard Purdie received a Four Star review in Downbeat calling him “one of the leading Roots pianists in New York” also noting that “Keyes isn’t to be trifled with as a singer.” Dave’s extensive Broadway and TV music credits include being the conductor for the 6 year Broadway run of the Grammy winning show “Smokey Joe’s Cafe.” Other credits include most recently music directing “Rock and Roll Man” a show based on the life of trailblazing DJ Alan Freed.
All Music Guide writes of Ellis Hooks, who has recorded critically acclaimed albums as a leader for Evidence and Artemis Records, sung with Stax legends Steve Cropper and Little Milton and performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival and Italy’s Poretta Soul Festival: “Until the arrival of Ellis Hooks on the 21st century blues and soul scenes with his now-signature meld of R&B, blues and Southern gospel, it seemed that the great stories surrounding these musics had already been told and passed into antiquity…Not so…Hooks is the true continuum in the celebrated Southern traditions of soul, blues, and gospel; his voice, while reminiscent of some of the greats, is nonetheless his own, and his phrasing is a trademark.” Glide Magazine declares “Bergson and Hooks have become a modern-day blues-infused Sam and Dave” and together, they have headlined Switzerland’s Vallemaggia Magic Blues Festival, Italy’s Trasimeno Blues Festival and France’s Cognac Blues Passions and Cahors Blues Festival.
The Australian bassist Matt Clohesy left his hometown of Melbourne for the USA in 2001. Based in New York City, he has since gained worldwide recognition as an acoustic and electric bass player. He has been called upon to tour and/or record with such notable bandleaders as Seamus Blake, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Geoffrey Keezer, Eric Reed, Kevin Hays, Ingrid Jensen, David Kikoski and Donny McCaslin. Clohesy is regularly involved with Grammy nominated and Downbeat award winning composer Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society. In the pop world, he has performed with Grammy winner Colbie Calliat and can often be heard with the Chris Bergson Band. He continues to work with many of his peers’ bands including Lage Lund, Mike Moreno, John Ellis, Jo Lawry and Gretchen Parlato.