RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Bill Cosby was in the spotlight last night. He delivered an impromptu performance at a jazz club in Philadelphia. It was the first time Cosby has been on stage since 2015, when accusations against him of sexual assault started to build. Bobby Allyn of member station WHYY reports that some saw this performance as Cosby's attempt to sway public opinion ahead of his second trial happening this spring.
BILL COSBY: All right. Let's raise the volume. Here we go.
BOBBY ALLYN, BYLINE: Cosby wore a grey hoodie with the words Hello Friends written in colorful letters as he sat in front of a mostly African-American crowd of about 50 people. Cosby's representatives let reporters know this was happening just two hours before it started in a small venue in Philadelphia's Germantown neighborhood. He told stories about his quiet Uncle William who loved to drink, the birth of his younger brother when he was a kid, and he joked about getting older and his blindness.
COSBY: You laugh when blind people walk into things. Hey, guess what? Blind people laugh when sighted people fall down.
(LAUGHTER)
COSBY: (Laughter).
ALLYN: At times, he did scat singing, directing a jazz band instrument by instrument.
COSBY: Be dee bum. Ba deeble weeble. Ba da bee doo bee doo (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICIAN: (Playing woodwind instrument).
COSBY: It sounds much better with him doing it.
(LAUGHTER)
ALLYN: At one point, he left his wooden stool and got behind the band's drum kit and played some beats before he was replaced by an 11-year-old drummer, who he had some banter with.
COSBY: Who am I?
UNIDENTIFIED BOY: Bill Cosby.
COSBY: And what do I do?
UNIDENTIFIED BOY: You're a comedian.
COSBY: I used to be a comedian.
(LAUGHTER)
ALLYN: Used to is the key phrase. Cosby's comedy career was shaken following dozens of women accusing him of sexual abuse spanning decades. Then there was the 80-year-old's two-week criminal trial last year that ended in a hung jury. Cosby's second trial, on the same charges, that he drugged and molested a woman at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004, is set to start in April, yet his avuncular spirit at the club betrayed this past. Not one word about his accusers or his new trial made it into his routine.
DAVID HARRIS: So he's reintroducing himself as that old comedian, that funny guy. And that's how he wants to be thought of now.
ALLYN: David Harris is a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Before Cosby's first trial he kept a low profile, but this time around, Cosby had dinner at an Italian restaurant and invited the media. He's made publicized stops at barbershops and bakeries, and now this freewheeling performance. Harris says the climate during his next trial will be different.
HARRIS: What with the Me Too movement very strong out there, he needs all the help he can get in terms of public sympathy from any person who might sit on the jury.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAZZ CLUB AMBIENCE)
ALLYN: Back at the jazz club in Philadelphia, where most gave Cosby a friendly reception, views on Cosby's retrial varied. Craig McIver, a longtime friend of Cosby's and jazz drummer, said he thinks the jury will acquit Cosby. McIver says he doesn't believe the accusations.
CRAIG MCIVER: I've been around a lot of famous people as a professional drummer, and I can tell you, people throw themselves at these people. They really do.
ALLYN: McIver wasn't sitting far from club regular Julia Conway. She had a different take on the Cosby scandal.
JULIA CONWAY: I believe the women. I really do.
ALLYN: Conway says she's glad prosecutors in Pennsylvania decided to refile criminal charges against Cosby.
CONWAY: I feel as though it's too many women for them to make up similar stories. If there were a few I think it would be different.
ALLYN: For NPR News, I'm Bobby Allyn in Philadelphia.