Anat Cohen - Place & Time
“Jazz,” Duke Ellington once wrote, “is a good barometer of freedom. The music is so free that many people say around the world that it is the only unhampered, unhindered expression of complete freedom yet produced in this country.”
As Duke also knew, from his travels in many countries around the world, this common language of free, personal expression in not at all limited to musicians of American origin. World-class guitarist Jim Hall has told me, “I’ve played in many countries, and in this music, I can communicate fully with musicians whose native language I can’t speak.”
And for a long time, musicians from other lands have shown that in telling who they are through jazz, they have added to the music the sounds and experience of where they came from – from Django Reinhardt to Toshiko Akiyoshi.
Anat Cohen, who first emerged in her own voice as part of the energetic Tel-Aviv jazz scene, has played in many countries, and now, based in America, she has become a vital member of the jazz scene here. I first heard her a few years ago at the Arbors Records tribute to Ruby Braff in Florida, and wrote, in the Wall Street Journal: “She filled the room with a huge, bursting sound” that felt to me like the spirit of Ben Webster.
Like Ben Webster, however, in other sets that day, she revealed a luminous lyricism on ballads. In whatever context she plays – and during that event in Florida, she worked with a variety of players of different styles – Anat Cohen has the quality of all lasting jazz musicians. She has presence. From her first notes, she tells you who she is – and over time, she tells you where she’s been in her life and travels.
Place & Time (www.AnatCohen.Com) is her first recording as a leader. She explains the title: “Both ‘place and time’ have been essential to my journey as a musician and a person. Moving from Israel to the U.S.A., traveling around the world playing and listening to music and spending time in different countries absorbing the culture and music have contributed to what is now ‘my’ music.
“This album,” she continues, “includes these different influences from all over the world through my specific lens as a jazz musician. It is an exploration from Israel to Brazil, from Cuba to Argentina, and the multitude of cultures and styles of New York City.”
Whether on her evocative originals in this set, and on other tracks, she does what all authentic musicians do: she tells stories from her own experiences that are so deeply felt that they are very likely to connect listeners to their own dreams, desires, and longings.
What she wants to say requires a rainbow of instrumental textures and so, here, she speaks with both technical and emotional command of tenor and soprano saxophones, and clarinet.
A brief Summary of her musical history includes two years with the Israeli Air Force Big Band; and then, coming to Boston on a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music *where she received a BA in professional music before moving on to New York.
For the past six years, she has been a member of the all-women Diva Jazz Orchestra – which I have called the most thrilling big jazz band on the scene – and its Five Play Jazz Quintet. She has been a guest artist at the Apollo with Wynton Marsalis’s Lincoln Jazz Orchestra, and surely would qualify to be its first full-time woman member if Wynton ever decides to fully integrate the orchestra. And illustrating the scope of her musical adventurousness, Anat in an integral member of the New York-based Choro Ensemble, which is committed, as she says, “to the authentic Choro tradition of Brazil”
Inevitably, Anat is also making her mark as a leader, having introduced her quartet at Sweet Rhythm in 2004. Her range of musical challenges recalls what Duke Ellington used to tell me about his refusal to limit music to any “category.” He had no patience for being confined to any one form or style.
Exemplifying that openness to the fullness of musical possibilities, Anat is performing in a duo project with pianist Alon Yavnai . (Their debut CD is scheduled for release in spring, 2005) And she also appears with her two brothers, Yuval Cohen and Avishai Cohen, on the BMG CD, “Summa Cum Jazz” and on their current self-released, debut album: “3 Cohens/One”.
Her composing and arranging are as intriguingly personal as her playing. Accordingly, I asked her to provide some of the genesis of originals in this album.
Anat Writes:
The 7th of March- in memory of David Demlin March 7th is my birthday. I completed this song on my birthday. On March 3rd, 2002 David Demlin was shot in an act of terror while fulfilling his duty as a reserve soldier for the IDF. David was a French Horn Player in my high school and the best friend of one of my friends. I composed this song and have played it over and over for him – as a prayer for his soul and with hope for better times.
87 North – This is a song I wrote after a trip to Rochester NY with the Diva Jazz Orchestra. We drove in 2 vans. The driver of the one I was in ….missed the turn off from the highway for Rochester…and kept going until we were approaching the Canadian border. We had traveled for several hours too long, singing happily all the while, on 87 North. The 7-hour trip to the gig turned into a 14 hour haul. Luckily we didn’t play that night. When I got home, finally, after a couple of days this song came out.
Homeland –While I was writing this song I realized it evoked many of my memories of Israel. It sounded to me like an Israeli song and I had to invite my brother to play it with me – I kept hearing his trumpet playing this melody. I called it homeland for the “Suadade”… the missing of my country,
Pour Toi (in the memory of Stan Bothorel) – I had a dream in which I met my friend Stan who had died a few years ago. Stan, originally from Paris, was a wonderful pianist who came to study at Berklee. We met at school and started a quartet. It was my first quartet at Berklee. We used to play together quite a lot. He passed away in 98 after fighting cancer. He was only 28. A couple of years ago I met him in my dream. We hung out all night, enjoying life, talking about life and death, enjoying nature, the wind, the trees… This dream was full of happiness and optimism. When I woke up in the morning I laid my hands on the keyboard and this song came effortlessly and completely.
Bat-El is a nickname I call my friend Michal. She calls me Bat-El as well. She lives in Tel-Aviv and I wrote this song when I was staying at her house on one of my visits to Israel when my parents’ home was under construction. Bat-El means “the daughter of God”… I am not sure why we started to use this name but we’ve been doing so for a while now.
Viente Anos is a Cuban song. I’ve loved Cuban music since I started to play in an Afro-Latin Band back in my Boston days. When I was looking for a material for the album my friend Colin suggested I record Viente Anos. It is a famous Cuban song, which I’ve heard before. Jeff Ballard approached it more as a Tango vibe and I’m sure I felt connection to the Jewish sounding melody… The melody sounds to me eternal and I feel it could be played in many different ways.
In his book Jazz Planet (University of Mississippi press), E. Taylor Atkins, a history professor at Northern Illinois University, writes of jazz being “a harbinger of what we know call globalization in that the music expresses democracy, individualism, social mobility…its explosive creative energy, as breathtaking as that of any true art…is cathartic.”
Professor Atkins could well have had Anat Cohen in mind when he wrote that.
Jo Jones, “the man played like the wind” Count Basis’s longtime drummer, who was a mentor of mine in jazz, and in life, one said: “What is Jazz? The closest I can get to answering that is that jazz is playing what you feel. All jazz musicians express themselves through their instruments, and they express the types of persons they are, the experiences they’ve had during the day, during the night before, during their lives. There is no way they can subterfuge their feelings.”
Jo Jones too could have had Anat Cohen in mind.
- Nat Hentoff
With: Anat Cohen - Tenor & Soprano Sax, Clarinet Jason Lindner - Piano Ben Street - Bass Jeff Ballard - Drums Avishai Cohen - Trumpet (tracks 4,6,7& 9)
The 7th of March- in memory of David Demlin March 7th is my birthday. I completed this song on my birthday. On March 3rd, 2002 David Demlin was shot in an act of terror while fulfilling his duty as a reserve soldier for the IDF. David was a French Horn Player in my high school and the best friend of one of my friends. I composed this song and have played it over and over for him – as a prayer for his soul and with hope for better times.
87 North – This is a song I wrote after a trip to Rochester NY with the Diva Jazz Orchestra. We drove in 2 vans. The driver of the one I was in ….missed the turn off from the highway for Rochester…and kept going until we were approaching the Canadian border. We had traveled for several hours too long, singing happily all the while, on 87 North. The 7-hour trip to the gig turned into a 14 hour haul. Luckily we didn’t play that night. When I got home, finally, after a couple of days this song came out.
Homeland –While I was writing this song I realized it evoked many of my memories of Israel. It sounded to me like an Israeli song and I had to invite my brother to play it with me – I kept hearing his trumpet playing this melody. I called it homeland for the “Suadade”… the missing of my country,
Pour Toi (in the memory of Stan Bothorel) – I had a dream in which I met my friend Stan who had died a few years ago. Stan, originally from Paris, was a wonderful pianist who came to study at Berklee. We met at school and started a quartet. It was my first quartet at Berklee. We used to play together quite a lot. He passed away in 98 after fighting cancer. He was only 28. A couple of years ago I met him in my dream. We hung out all night, enjoying life, talking about life and death, enjoying nature, the wind, the trees… This dream was full of happiness and optimism. When I woke up in the morning I laid my hands on the keyboard and this song came effortlessly and completely.
Bat-El is a nickname I call my friend Michal. She calls me Bat-El as well. She lives in Tel-Aviv and I wrote this song when I was staying at her house on one of my visits to Israel when my parents’ home was under construction. Bat-El means “the daughter of God”… I am not sure why we started to use this name but we’ve been doing so for a while now.
Viente Anos is a Cuban song. I’ve loved Cuban music since I started to play in an Afro-Latin Band back in my Boston days. When I was looking for a material for the album my friend Colin suggested I record Viente Anos. It is a famous Cuban song, which I’ve heard before. Jeff Ballard approached it more as a Tango vibe and I’m sure I felt connection to the Jewish sounding melody… The melody sounds to me eternal and I feel it could be played in many different ways.
In his book Jazz Planet (University of Mississippi press), E. Taylor Atkins, a history professor at Northern Illinois University, writes of jazz being “a harbinger of what we know call globalization in that the music expresses democracy, individualism, social mobility…its explosive creative energy, as breathtaking as that of any true art…is cathartic.”
Professor Atkins could well have had Anat Cohen in mind when he wrote that.
Jo Jones, “the man played like the wind” Count Basis’s longtime drummer, who was a mentor of mine in jazz, and in life, one said: “What is Jazz? The closest I can get to answering that is that jazz is playing what you feel. All jazz musicians express themselves through their instruments, and they express the types of persons they are, the experiences they’ve had during the day, during the night before, during their lives. There is no way they can subterfuge their feelings.”
Jo Jones too could have had Anat Cohen in mind.
- Nat Hentoff
With: Anat Cohen - Tenor & Soprano Sax, Clarinet Jason Lindner - Piano Ben Street - Bass Jeff Ballard - Drums Avishai Cohen - Trumpet (tracks 4,6,7& 9)