Avishai Cohen's New York Division at the Barbican

Avishai Cohen and his New York Division played the Barbican last night. They took us on a musical journey that included stops at several of his albums - from the very first to his most recent, displaying influences from be-bop and classical music and ending with a series of songs in English, Hebrew and Spanish. 

Over the years I have been to many of his concerts and every time there is something new and different. He has given us jazz quartets, jazz with strings, experimented with songs in a variety of languages and now we have the New York Division which adds three more world class musicians to his most accomplished trio. For slightly more than two hours last night our Avishai was accompanied on stage by Kurt Rosenwinkel on guitar,  Steve Davis on trombone and Diego Urcola on trumpet, the line up being completed by trio members Nitai Hershkovits on piano and Daniel Dor on drums.

Entering the stage in darkness to cheers and applause it was straight into the music with songs from the current album From Darkness, including Ballad for an Unborn and Amethyst (and I think Signature as well?), a good long workout of Shuffle from the Colors album of 2000 and an even earlier piece from his very first album - Bass Suite #2 from Adama, released in 1998. I especially enjoyed this reference back to his early solo days which he played to open the second set, accompanied only by messers Davis and Urcola in a short but engaging interplay between the three instruments. Throughout the evening, there were clear references to classical music as well as middle eastern and other influences and for me there are echoes of both early music and the streets of Jewish Spain before the expulsion in 1492.

The second set/ lengthy encore (for which thanks!) included a vocal version of the old Nat King Cole classic Nature Boy (revived in the 1970's by George Benson-  also a classic). Singing in English, it was an emotional reading of a mystical song and one which Cohen has yet to record. He teased the audience by saying he would - which was responded to with a cry of "do it". I hope he does.  This was followed by my favourite track from his Aurora album - Alon Basela, sang in Hebrew and inspired by his father. The title means an oak tree in a rock and the lyrics are about staying firm through adversity. I like the tense, urgent feel of the song and the way his voice becomes an additional instrument in the performing of it. I loved the physicality of his performance of this song, with much drumming of fingers on the bass, providing his own percussion. 

No Avishai Cohen concert is complete without at least one song in Spanish and or Ladino and we were treated to a salsa influenced piece with euphoric Latin influenced piano playing from Hershkovits and the sharpest trumpet playing from Diego Urcola. Urcola's playing was for me one of the highlights of the evening - I've already been on Amazon looking for his albums! Still in a Latin theme, we then had a solo from Cohen as he performed the Argentinian song, Alfionsina Y El Mar before the ensemble rejoined him for a lengthy and riotous reading of Gershon Beat from the At Home album, which I still think is one of his best. Each of the musicians were showcased in this final number including Cohen displaying little known percussion talents using drums ticks on his metal music stand to accompany drummer Daniel Dor. Dor stood out with a magnificent solo that left the audience cheering and him exhausted! 

British audiences love Avishai Cohen and received several standing ovations, calls from the auditorium for favourites to be played and murmurs of recognition of most of the numbers and he can play an audience in a small intimate like Ronnie Scotts or a large auditorium such as the Barbican to equal effect. He is currently working on fusing jazz and classical music more closely and will premiere this work in Sweden in September with his trio performing with the Malmo Symphony Orchestra. Let's hope he brings this show to London soon, oh and Avishai - don't forget about recording Nature Boy too!

Avishai Cohen - with strings!

"This is the project". That's what Avishai Cohen said last night at the Barbican at the end of two truly stunning sets of old, new and re-worked songs in the company of his regular trio partners, pianist Nitai Hershkovits and 20 years old drummer Ofri Nehemiah with five outstanding musicians - cellist Yael Shapir, violinist Cordelia Hagmann, viola players Amit Landau and Noam Heimovitz-Weinschel and oboist Yoram Lachish. Ms. Shapir also joined Cohen on some of the vocals. Very nice. "The project" was Avishai's reference to his latest musical development, incorporating stringed instruments into his musical repertoire.

The gig began with "Overture" an original Avishai Cohen composition that he said he had worked on for a very long time and which had a distinctly classical feel to it. The audience which included many regular Cohen concert goers seemed a little surprised at first at this approach but very quickly warmed up as he worked through a couple of Hebrew songs - his version of what he described as an old fashioned innocent love song and then Natan Alterman's slightly psychotically worded poem Nigun Atiq, which pledges undying love and devotion but also includes threats of death and destruction stemming from jealousy!  

Cohen's Ladino repertoire was well represented with Alfonsina, Morenika, Puncha Puncha and Yo Menamori all well received. There was a reference to Cohen's jazz roots with Thad Jones "A Child Is Born" which was completely beautiful with our man's playing, a terrific solo from Lachish, and the strength of feeling from the strings bringing at least one listener to the brink of tears. And those strings were frighteningly effective during a new arrangement of the old favourite "Shalom Aleichem" - the strength of Cordelia Hagmann's violin playing being the revelation of the evening for me. This piece showcased each of the musicians with Hershkowitz's oriental flavoured piano and Nehemiah's drumming also getting huge cheers from the totally involved crowd.

Three times the audience brought them back, with a cheeky solo of "La Cukaracha" from Cohen, "Seven Seas" from the whole ensemble and "Remembering" from the trio. And they really could have played all night if the audience had their way. This is indeed "The Project". The addition of strings, the new arrangements and the obvious joy of those musicians at joining our hero made for a very special night.

Now, when are we going to get an album of this? Avishai Cohen, you are a genius and we are priveliged.

Jazz genius Avishai Cohen - stompin' at Ronnie Scotts

For an encore they gave us "Remembering". Heart-achingly beautiful. Heartbreakingly beautiful. And for five minutes or so I am not in a rainy October London, I am standing on the shore at Tel Aviv as the Mediterranean sun sets in all of its purples, reds and oranges as the sky slowly darkens and the tide laps in. And then they were gone and I have to go for the tube!

Tonight was the second of three nights at Ronnie Scott's for Avishai Cohen, who has to be the best bass player in the world as well as a pretty fantastic pianist and a mean guitar player. He also sings rather wonderfully too - although tonight he didn't treat us to the voice. Supported by two other maestros - Omri Mor on piano and Amir Bresler on drums, the show opened with a lengthy working out of "Dreaming" from the "Seven Seas" album, and this set the tone for the evening with exquisite interplay between the three musicians - Mor working his magic on the piano and introducing an "oriental" sound to the proceedings, whilst Mr Bresler was infinitely more than the man who holds the music together, regularly taking the lead and as Avishai himself said, challenging the other musicians with innovative and inventive rhythms.

The trio worked their way through a number of recent  recordings including the title track from the "Seven Seas" album and three tracks from the recent and remarkable "Duende" album - "Soof", "Calm" and "Ballad for an unborn", the latter two being beautiful ballads soothing the audience after some earlier duelling between the musicians. We were also treated to a remarkable tribute to Lebanese songstress Samira Tawfik when the trio put two of her songs together and gave them the Avishai Cohen treatment. This had the audience whooping and shrieking - whilst a couple of other numbers had a distinctly middle eastern feel to them and also received a good reception.

I liked Omri Mor's cheeky reference to Gershwin's "Fascinating Rhythm" during one of the numbers, as well as his almost permanent smile and obvious delight in performing, whilst Cohen performed some amazing facial gymnastics that would rival the skills of some of the most accomplished mime artists. Every time I see Avishai Cohen play I am reminded of the physicality of being a musician. His performance its not about standing on the stage and playing beautifully, it is about his relationship with the instrument; talking to it, moving with it and using it to speak to the audience. And he is a showman too - putting down his bass and joining Omri Mor on the drums to support the "lead" drumming of Amir Bresler during the penultimate number to further shrieks of delight from the audience. It really doesn't get any better than this.

Amir Breslau is just 22 whilst Omri Mor is also less than 30. I saw Mor play at Levontin 7 in Tel Aviv a few years ago accompanying the great Maurice el Medioni - surely we must have an album from him soon? I don't know how a small country like Israel produces so many great jazz artists - Omer Avital, Yaala Ballin, Ilan Salem, Shai Maesto, Yonatan Avishai, Ari Erev, Anat Cohen, Yuval Cohen ( and the other, trumpet playing, Avishai Cohen - no relation to tonight's Mr Cohen, but brother of Anat and Yuval, oh and there's another Yuval Cohen who plays piano!) -  and this is only part of the story. The jazz scene there is small but beautiful with many young artists coming through. There are a number of hot jazz clubs and there is also the now twice per year Red Sea Jazz Festival, for which Avishai Cohen has been artistic director for the last few years.

Our Avishai is playing Ronnie Scott's tomorrow night - but it is sold out not surprisingly, so uness you an squeeze in, you'll have to wait until 7th May next year when he is playing the Barbican. Don't miss it - I'm booking my ticket as soon as I post this and then going to bed happy!