Introducing Avishai Cohen (Yes, the Bass Player)
Introducing Avishai Cohen (Yes, the Bass Player)
Bassist Avishai Cohen likely needs no introduction, but nevertheless a quick disambiguation first: there are two major Avishai Cohens in Israeli jazz, and even longtime fans mix up their Spotify pages. This post is about the bassist, born in 1970, not the trumpeter who plays with Third World Love and is the brother of clarinetist Anat Cohen. Different musician, different instrument, both worth knowing.
Cohen grew up in Israel and moved to New York as a young player. Chick Corea heard him and pulled him into the Origin sextet, later the New Trio, through the 1990s. He stepped out from there to lead his own trio, mixing straight-ahead jazz with Andalusian, Ladino, and Mediterranean phrasing, sometimes singing in Ladino over his own bass lines rather than just playing under someone else's vocal.
The best entry point for a new listener is "1970," the album he named after his own birth year. It's more song-forward and personal than his earlier trio records, and it works as a snapshot of where twenty-plus years of playing had taken him by the time he made it.
He hasn't stayed in one lane since. His project Gadu, with American drummer Mark Guiliana, pushes him into rock-inflected territory, a real departure from the double bass and trio format that built his name. Worth hearing if you only know the acoustic side of his catalog.
Where to start listening:
- His official platforms:
- "1970" for the song-forward, personal side - sample Emptiness Child
- "Gadu" on Youtube
