A Beast Unleashed From the Southeast

Beast Mode Trio features three powerful South Florida musicians, each with Grammy Awards and star connections, on its debut Something Like a Picture (Inner Cat).

An Australian pianist, a Cuban bassist and an American drummer walk into a nightclub ... only this is no joke. The Beast Mode Trio features rising keyboard sensation Tal Cohen (whose touring and recording credits include Joe Lovano, Terence Blanchard and Greg Osby), bassist Armando Gola (Arturo Sandoval, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Eldar Djangirov) and drummer Jonathan "Hollywood" Joseph (Jeff Beck, Joe Zawinul, Pat Metheny).

In concert and on its Gola-mixed and mastered 2025 debut Something Like a Picture (Inner Cat), the trio creates a stylistic kaleidoscope. There are original compositions and standards like Rodgers and Hammerstein's "My Favorite Things," John Coltrane's "Lonnie's Lament" and Jerome Kern's

"Yesterdays," yet they certainly aren't always performed in standard form ("Yesterdays," for instance, is played in a complex 7/8 time signature).

Cohen shines on acoustic piano, with occasional Fender Rhodes electric accents, while Gola creates nimble six-string electric bass figures and Joseph guides the serpentining rhythms. The drummer, who worked with guitarist Beck from 2012 to 2017, also had an influential stint playing alongside Cameroon-born bassist Richard Bona. African rhythms like mangambe and bikutsi thus take the Beast Mode Trio's sonic explorations further into the stratosphere. They're also the basis for Joseph's 2015 instructional book Exercises in African-American Funk (Hudson Music), co-authored by Steve Rucker, his instructor at the University of Miami's Frost School of Music.

As a result, the original compositions on Something Like a Picture range from the rhythmic shell game of Joseph's opening "Pinda" to the mix of Middle Eastern melody and traditional jazz harmony Cohen displays on his gorgeous ballad "Picturesque."

The nature of the Beast Mode Trio will be on display as it performs early and late shows on July 19 and 20 at Judson's Live in Orlando, Florida. Located at the Dr. Phillips Center and named for late jazz pianist Judson Green, the room was designed with stellar sight lines and acoustics in mind.

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