Avishai Cohen Trio - Gently Disturbed

Another album to find it's way into my mailbox recently is the Avishai Cohen Trio's recording "Gently Disturbed." The Trio is from Israel, which more or less qualifies it for inclusion in Teruah. I'm not enough of a jazz-head to feel like I can comment intelligently on album, other than to say it sneaked up on me. My first reaction was that it was lovely, but too restrained and repetitive for my ears. But as I've listened to it longer, I've been sucked into it. There's an almost Baroque shifting of patterns and an adventurous sense use of rhythmic figures that is quite compelling. Even for us aging punksters. I can only imagine what they'd be like live. Hopefully I'll get the chance to see them some time.

Here's a clip from Cohen's bio:

Bassist/Composer/Band Leader Avishai Cohen, born April 20, 1970 in Israel, is a musician who has been called a jazz visionary of global proportions by DownBeat, and was declared one of the 100 Most Influential Bass Players of the 20th Century by Bass Player Magazine. Cohen is not only renowned around the world as an influential double bassist and profound composer, but also as a visionary bandleader that is following in the footsteps of Mingus, Dave Holland, Jaco Pastorius, Ray Brown, Charlie Haden, Stanley Clarke, and even Sting. In fact, every move Avishai Cohen makes routinely causes waves of critical praise.

Whew. I love bio puffery. Anyway, I couldn't find a good source for online clips from the new album, but here's good representative video.

Avishai Cohen Trio - Shalom

You can learn more about Cohen and the trio and get one of their albums from their website and their MySpace page.