Avishai Cohen

Avishai Cohen (Vienna 2009)

Avishai Cohen (born April 20, 1970 in Kibbutz Kabri ) is an Israeli jazz bassist, singer, band leader, composer and arranger of modern jazz . He combines (according to the assessment of Alex Henderson in the All Music Guide ) in his style influences from the Middle East and Israeli music with fusion and acoustic jazz. The Bass Player magazine listed him among the 100 most influential bass players of the 20th century.

Life

Avishai Cohen comes from a musical family. He began playing the piano at the age of eleven and became interested in jazz at the age of 14. After playing the piano in a school jazz band, he switched to the electric bass, inspired by the music of Jaco Pastorius . At the age of 16 Cohen attended Music & Arts High School in Jerusalem, later he played in local gigs in Jerusalem until he finally did his military service. Then Cohen changed the instrument to the acoustic bass.

Avishai Cohen Eastern Unit in Kiev, Ukraine, 2008

In 1992 he moved to New York , where he initially worked. a. when movers and construction workers had to break through and his bass playing could mostly only be heard in parks or subways. He also attended the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music there . After performing together with greats like Paquito D'Rivera , Joshua Redman , Wynton Marsalis or Roy Hargrove , the Latin jazz pianist Danilo Pérez hired him for his band, and in 1996 the world-class pianist Chick Corea brought him into his newly formed acoustic sextet Origin . Until 2003 Cohen was one of the bands of Chick Corea. Cohen also played a. a. with Ravi Coltrane and Leon Parker as well as with their own formations in small clubs. In 1996 he played with the guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel . In 1997 he received a record contract and recorded a first album, Adama , for the Stretch label. During this time he also worked a. a. with Seamus Blake , Steve Davis , Claudia Acuña , Herbie Hancock , Amos Hoffman , Bobby McFerrin and Danilo Pérez.

After leaving the Corea band, he founded the Avishai Cohen Trio with the drummer Mark Guiliana and the Israeli pianist Shai Maestro . Cohen eventually returned to Israel.

With his own trio with Shai Maestro and Itamar Doari, he recorded a number of albums on the Razdaz Recordz label after 2005 and performed at the Jazzfest Berlin in 2008 . Since the album Duende (2012), Nitai Hershkovits plays the piano; In addition, at the end of 2013 Daniel Dor replaced the previous drummer Mark Guiliana. He also played with Ziv Ravitz ( Images from Home , 2009). Outside of jazz, Cohen worked with singer Alicia Keys and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra .

On the studio album Arvoles (2019) you can hear Cohen with Elchin Shirinov on piano and Noam David on drums. Trombonist Björn Samuelsson and flautist Anders Hagberg will be performing on half of the ten tracks .

Quote

There are many Israeli songs based on Russian songs. Eastern European melodies with Hebrew lyrics. It became a folk idiom in Israel. Then there are composers who combined the Mediterranean sound and Arabic rhythms of the darabouka with western harmonies. That produced a special sound. I am that sound.