One of the very best jazz clarinettists around, Cohen is a seasoned player very well known in the States particularly where she has been on the cover of both Downbeat and Jazz Times.
This is the Israeli’s seventh album as a leader, a studio album recorded in April 2014 at Avatar in New York, the Brazilian choro urban style and Flying Lotus-referencing electronica providing in part a springboard for absorbing improvisatory flights of fancy in Cohen’s hands.
Here with her band in chamber-jazz mode featuring keyboardist Jason Lindner, bassist Joe Martin and drummer Daniel Freedman who appeared with her on Claroscuro plus guests including members of Cohen’s band Choro Aventuroso. Milton Nascimento songs also form part of the mix of material, Cohen a long-time appreciator of the great Brazilian. She also pays tribute to guitarist Baden Powell, Rio guitarist Romero Lubambo, well known for his work with Dianne Reeves, guesting on Cohen’s composition ‘In the Spirit of Baden’ as well as on three other tracks.
The leader adds bass clarinet to her choice of instruments and she plays tenor sax on ‘The Wein Machine’ a tribute to Newport Jazz Festival impresario George Wein whose all-star festival band Cohen has musically directed. Considered and timbrally elegant this is an album whose appeal lies chiefly in the way Cohen manages to reinvent the clarinet as a lead instrument in eclectic circumstances, the zesty Brazilian flavours never rendered complacent and heard in a new light.
Stephen Graham
Released on 17 March