Paul Cornish Trio

Jermaine Paul: Bass
Nazir Ebo: Drums
Paul Cornish: Piano

Paul Cornish is part of a lineage of Blue Note artists, past and present, who hail from Houston, Texas, and developed at the city’s Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, a.k.a. HSPVA. Its more recent hall of fame includes Jason Moran, Robert Glasper, Walter Smith III, Kendrick Scott, Chris Dave and James Francies. Of course, within that list there’s yet another bloodline of musicians who’ve come to define jazz pianism in the 21st century: Moran, Glasper, Francies and, now, Cornish, who was born and raised in Houston and has been based in Los Angeles for over a decade.

Who Paul Cornish is as a person has everything to do with Houston — a place where progressiveness and tradition exist in equilibrium, producing a culture and institutions that foster generation-defining talent. He showed interest in the drums as a toddler and studied percussion during grade school. Classical piano lessons began at age 5, and Cornish discovered jazz performance in his middle-school jazz band. His passion deepened at Houston’s long-running Summer Jazz Workshop, where he met Francies, a couple of years Cornish’s senior.

Cornish relocated to the West Coast to attend the USC Thornton School of Music and was chosen for the elite fellowship at UCLA’s Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz. There, he developed a personal and creative relationship with Hancock and artist-in-residence Wayne Shorter — two of his lodestars, and epochal figures in Blue Note history.

He’s spent his years in L.A. sketching out his career, with thrilling results. He’s collaborated with pop visionaries including Kanye West, Louis Cole, HAIM and Snoh Aalegra, and made his way into one of the finest working groups in all of jazz. On Words Fall Short, the most recent Blue Note album from saxophonist Joshua Redman, Cornish matches the leader’s mix of poise and emotional openness with his own contemplative language. Cornish has strived to internalize Redman’s “devotion to excellence,” he says. “He might be the most consistent person I’ve ever met in my life, in how he takes care of himself and the music.”

All of these experiences and mentors track throughout You’re Exaggerating!, a thoroughly compelling listen that ranks among Blue Note’s most auspicious debuts. Not that Paul Cornish, whose conversation is defined by its humility, would make such pronouncements himself. “Watching those players before me in Houston, it just gave me motivation to keep working hard,” he says. “I’m really just grateful to be a part of this story.”

Paul Cornish • You’re Exaggerating! • Release Date: August 22, 2025

Showtime: 7 pm ET/6 pm CT/5 pm MT/4 pm PT/12 am GMT

In-person seats: $20 / $10 full-time students with valid ID
Attendees receive a link to the recording to view for one week.
Advance sales end 1 hr before showtime; remaining tickets may be purchased at door.
 
Streaming Cost is $15
The link will be revealed 15 minutes before the show
and will remain active thru Sept. 6

Donations Welcome!