Avishai Cohen’s album Brightlight highlights a composer and bassist who seeks to explore new musical paths, redefine musical boundaries, all the while achieving musical excellence.

Release date: Available now 

Label: Naïve/Believe in association with ECN Music

Format: Digital download / CD / vinyl / streaming 

A BASSIST, COMPOSER AND SINGER 

Avishai Cohen is a bassist, composer and singer, who embraces exploration of new paths for his music, and redefining musical contexts and boundaries. Reading his online biography, it is interesting to note that he began his musical journey studying piano, only discovering the bass guitar, through being introduced to the work of Jaco Pastorius and Return to Forever who featured bassist Stanley Clarke. Both players were of course pivotal in the jazz fusion developments in the 1970s and beyond.  In fact, Avishai Cohen went on to play with Chick Corea, who founded Return to Forever, for a period of six years. It is quite a musical grounding and shows through in Avishai Cohen’s dynamic and exciting playing, and intricate and impassioned compositions.

On the Brightlight album, Avishai Cohen has drawn together an ensemble of musicians that can do full justice to his music, including his core trio of drummer Roni Kaspi, and pianist Guy Moskovich. There are other excellent contributions across the guitar, brass and woodwind instruments, together with some additional players on drums, piano and vocals. The album contains mostly original compositions, complemented by some wonderful interpretations of classical and jazz-based standards.

A SPARKLING OPENING TRACK

Opening track Courage sets out the album’s stall with authority and a sparkling delivery. The funk driven introduction leads into a mellow mid-section with atmospheric flowing bass lines and a lovely melodic refrain on the piano. This seamlessly shifts into a buoyant final section highlighting a consummate piece of piano soloing, with the whole section driven by a propulsive polyrhythmic drum arrangement. A simply superb beginning to the album.

Brightlight, the title track, follows on. It is built around a lit-up melody that inhabits the whole track with a joyous optimism. The way the bass and drums play counterpoint against the piano’s inventive explorations of the central melody, creates an inventive musical tension, that only reaches its full resolution in the final coda. A lesson in completely sympathetic playing between great musicians, that allows both freedom of exploration and tight ensemble playing.

The track, Hope, features contributions from the brass and woodwind instruments, alongside some finely sketched guitar figures from Yosi Ben Tovim. It has a feeling of chamber jazz in the ensemble sections, with a keen sense of precision in the playing. Avishai Cohen’s bass playing glides and soars, as it sublimely leads the music through numerous transitions.

A BALLAD AND IRRESISTABLE SWING

Moving to the mid-point in the album, the composition Drabkin offers a gentle ballad like structure, where the piano and saxophone create a narrative voice, which is imbued with a gentle romanticism. The underpinning delicate bass work, and brushed drums, work perfectly in complementing the musical trajectory of this piece. Roni’s Swing delivers a jaunty syncopated musical setting for Roni Kaspi’s drums to irresistibly swing, supported ably by some fine accenting from Avishai Cohen’s bass, and the vivacious piano phrasing. Roni Kaspi’s playing on this album is in fact a master class in drumming with subtlety and propulsive power.

REDEFINING JAZZ AND CLASSICAL STANDARDS

The three closing tracks demonstrate Avishai Cohen’s well-honed interpretive and arranging skills.  Liebestraum No.3 by Franz Liszt is played with a shimmering elegance. Avishai Cohen’s bass really flies here, adding a jazz ambience to this well-known classical piece. The arrangement by Avishai Cohen and Guy Moskovich is just perfect.

Summertime by George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward from the opera Porgy and Bess follows and is in contrast an incendiary piece of playing.  Avishai Cohen’s fine lead vocal leads the band through an intensely paced reading of this great song. The brass interjects and the way the drums and bass lock in takes the song quite wonderfully into ska music territory. With the addition of a spiky piano solo, this is a fabulous highlight on the album. 

The jazz standard, Polka Dots And Moonbeams, by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke, closes the album. Yuval Drabkin’s saxophone and Avishai Cohen’s bowed bass create an immersive ambience in the introductory section. As the song progresses, the ringing tone of Avishai Cohen’s bass playing is engagingly hypnotic, matched by the almost floating timbre of Yuval Drabkin’s saxophone. 

A FINE ALBUM

This is a very fine album, showcasing the compositional and playing vision of a great musician and composer. The album also highlights the incredible range and unlimited possibilities offered by the bass as a lead instrument, in the way Jaco Pastorius did at the height of his playing. There can be no higher complement. The musicians playing with Avishai Cohen on this album are uniformly excellent and the energy and level of playing show their undoubted commitment to this project.  

Avishai is also playing a short residency at Ronnie Scott’s right now – 17th-19th March – info link

You can view the official video for the Avishai Cohen Quintet playing Summertime live at Jazz in Marciac in 2024 here:

 Avishai Cohen online: Website / Facebook / Instagram

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