Avishai Cohen - Naked Truth (February 25, 2022 ECM)

There is a searching, yearning quality to Naked Truth, and a raw beauty and vulnerability in Avishai Cohen’s trumpet sound on his most improvisational ECM recording to date.  Very much music-of-the moment, found and shaped in the course of a remarkable recording session in the South of France, Naked Truth takes the form of an extemporaneous suite. For most of its length the Israeli trumpeter painstakingly leads the way, closely shadowed by his long-time comrades – pianist Yonathan Avishai, bassist Barak Mori and drummer Ziv Ravitz - who share an intuitive understanding, hyper alert to the music’s subtly-changing emphases.  At the album’s conclusion, Cohen recites “Departure”, a poem by Zelda Schneurson Mishkovsky, whose themes of renunciation, acceptance and letting go seem optimally-attuned to the mood of the music. Naked Truth was recorded at Studios La Buissonne in Pernes-les-Fontaines, in September 2021, and produced by Manfred Eicher.   

1. Naked Truth Part 1

2. Naked Truth Part 2

3. Naked Truth Part 3

4. Naked Truth Part 4

5. Naked Truth Part 5

6. Naked Truth Part 6

7. Naked Truth Part 7

8. Naked Truth Part 8

9. Naked Truth: Departure

Avishai Cohen: trumpet

Yonathan Avishai: piano

Barak Mori: double bass

Ziv Ravitz: drums

Will be released on February 25, 2022 on CD and digitally

Vinyl edition to be available in June

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Avishai Cohen - Cross My Palm With Silver (ECM 2017)

A year after his impressionistic, critically-lauded ECM debut Into The Silence, trumpeter Avishai Cohen’s Cross My Palm With Silver introduces a programme of new pieces which put the focus on the ensemble, on teamwork, with a quartet of the highest calibre. The adroit, almost telepathic interplay among the musicians allows Avishai Cohen to soar, making it clear why he is one of the most talked-about jazz musicians on the contemporary scene. “All of these people together are my dream team”, says the charismatic trumpeter of fellow players Yonathan Avishai, Barak Mori and Nasheet Waits, who share his sense for daring improvisation and his feeling for structure. “I feel we’re in a perfect place with the balance. It’s open and there’s so much room for the improvisation to take the music any place we can. At the same time the composition is very specific and the vibe is very direct and thought about.” As with Into The Silence, Cross My Palm With Silver was produced by Manfred Eicher at Studios La Buissonne in the south of France. It is issued on the eve of a major European tour, with concerts in France, Italy, Spain, Luxembourg, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands.

1. "Will I Die, Miss? Will I Die?" (10:20)

2. Theme For Jimmy Greene (05:24)

3. 340 Down (03:51)

4. Shoot Me In the Leg (12:09)

5. 50 Years and Counting (07:03)

Avishai Cohen: trumpet

Yonathan Avishai: piano

Barak Mori: double bass

Nasheet Waits: drums

Avishai Cohen - Into the Silence (2016) ECM RECORDS

Avishai Cohen impressed a lot of listeners with his soulful contributions to Mark Turner’s Lathe of Heaven album in 2014. Now the charismatic Tel Aviv-born trumpeter has his ECM leader debut in a programme of expansive and impressionistic compositions for jazz quartet (trumpet, piano, bass, drums), augmented by tenor saxophone on a few pieces. Into The Silence is dedicated to the memory of Avishai’s father David, reflecting upon the last days of his life with grace and restraint. Avishai’s tender muted trumpet sets the emotional tone of the music in the album’s opening moments and his gifted cast of musicians explore its implications. Israeli pianist Yonathan Avishai has played with Cohen in many settings and solos creatively inside the trumpeter’s haunting compositions, sometimes illuminating them with the phraseology of the blues. Cohen and drummer Nasheet Waits have a hypersensitive understanding and their interaction can, from moment to moment, recall the heyday of Miles Davis and Tony Williams or Don Cherry and Billy Higgins. Yet this music, while acknowledging inspirational sources, is very much of our time. Bassist Eric Revis, a cornerstone of the Branford Marsalis quartet for two decades, provides elegant support throughout. And saxophonist Bill McHenry, a subtle modernist who has worked with Paul Motian and Andrew Cyrille, shadows Cohen’s lines with feeling. Into The Silence was recorded at Studios La Buissonne in the South of France in July 2015 and produced by Manfred Eicher.

1. Life and Death 9:18 

2. Dream Like a Child 15:30 

3. Into the Silence 12:12 

4. Quiescence 5:10 

5. Behind the Broken Glass 8:12 

6. Life and Death (Epilogue) 2:43

Avishai Cohen, trumpet

Bill McHenry, tenor sax

Yonathan Avishai, piano 

Eric Revis, double bass

Nasheet Waits, drums

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