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| Avishai Cohen Celebrates New Album at The JVC Jazz Festival Bassist/composer Avishai Cohen offers to the world his spectacularly beautiful new recording Continuo, a project that gloriously combines the influences of classical and Middle Eastern music and jazz. "These elements together produced the combination of sounds I was looking for, and created a nice balance between composed and improvised music, " says Cohen. Continuo (the follow up to the critically acclaimed At Home) displays the magic of a working band, "which in this music is stronger than any concept, " adds Cohen. He continued, "I'm very grateful to have two young masters (pianist Sam Barsh and drummer Mark Guiliana) of their instruments with me to convey that they are, on one hand, young in their ever thirsty minds for more information, and, on the other, old enough in their souls to emotionally express themselves on a very high level through the compositions." The trio, a crackerjack unit that has been delighting audiences around the world for almost three years, welcomed into the fold a long-time collaborator of Cohen's, fellow Israeli Amos Hoffman, who contributed his singular oud playing to several tracks. Avishai explains, "a lot of the new material on Continuo has a through-composed, classical music-like nature to it, as well as open sections for solos. In addition to that, there are strong Middle Eastern influences in some parts of the compositions. Contemplating the material for the album, I realized I wanted an additional color added to the trio in order to enhance those influences. There was only one man for the job, Amos Hoffman. "I'm excited and proud to offer you some moments of my life once again, reflected through the music, " says Cohen. Continuo will be released by Sunnyside Records on May 23, 2006 and distributed by RykoDisc in the U.S. The Avishai Cohen Trio will play at The NYC JVC Jazz Festival, headlining a triple bill at Irving Plaza on June 15, 2006 with Groove Collective and the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey. write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Jazz News :: home page |