Styles and substance
Cohen’s innovative album features an intricate tapestry of influences and instrumentations
Avishai Cohen
Two Roses
Avishai Cohen (voice, acoustic bass, electric bass, synthesizer), Mark Guiliana (drums), Elchin Shirinov (piano), Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra/alexander Hanson naïve/believe M 7370
Anyone tempted to revisit the argument about what jazz is or isn’t should probably not start here. This album is a tour de force in which a set of ambitious orchestral pieces is leavened with a handful of poignant songs and standards, its eccentric programming being just one reason why the entire project should have been a catastrophic failure.
There’s plenty more to take issue with: the orchestration evokes Gershwin, Ellington, Tchaikovsky’s ballets and the film scores of Basil Poledouris (often all at once) and is overcooked in the way that has composition tutors reaching exasperatedly for their red pencils. The standards are schmaltzy and Cohen’s bland singing voice suggests he should stick to playing the bass.
Nevertheless, the whole vast apparatus somehow draws the listener in as if by its own gravitational field and absolutely works in spite of itself, infused as it is with the kind of imagination and propulsive conviction that can, on a good day, make for great jazz (or near-jazz). ★★★★★
May round-up
The are also ways of adding to the scope of jazz without using large resources (see Jazz Choice), as demonstrated by Shez Raja and associates on Tales from the Punjab, which sees this superb electric bassist drop down a few gears from his usual melodic groove-driven metafunk to explore his Punjabi roots alongside several musicians from the region. Raja deftly sidesteps the clichés of Indo-jazz, perfectly contextualising his lively contributions to this set of compositions and improvisations that variously feature voice, tabla, sarangi (possibly the only bowed string instrument in the world that requires the strings to be stopped by the player’s cuticles), the bansuri flute and even the cajon, the box drum with roots in Africa and
South America. Vivid and highly engaging. (Ubuntu UBU0077CD) ★★★★★
Back in more conventional territory, two Norwegian pianists have released interesting trio discs in recent months. Maria Kannegard’s Sand i en vik –
‘Sand in a cove’, since I know you asked – also features bassist Ole Morten Vågan and drummer Thomas Strønen (noted for his work with the UK’S Iain Ballamy and much else) and is an appealing exposition in which a very funny three-stroke thrash at the piano’s innards (it lasts 57 seconds and gets its own pithy title) precedes a set of tight, pokey tunes driven along by inventive riffs and realworld quasi-loops. The overall result has an I-dare-you-to-stoplistening quality that is sustained throughout the set. Lovely stuff. ( Jazzland 3779281) ★★★★★
Eyolf Dale and his trio, on the other hand, expertly place an emphasis on not emphasising anything over anything else on Being, an album of compositions by the leader that roams with natural ease across contemplative lyricism, deftly nudged rhythmic excursions and quizzical melodies. Dale’s touch is here subtly evocative of that of the still-missed jazz piano legend John Taylor, while bassist
Per Zanussi and drummer Audun Kleive are discreetly on the case throughout. Nice work. (Edition EDN1167 ) ★★★★
Another pianist with a new and distinctive offering is Yelena Eckemoff, whose sextet handles the programmatic Adventures of the Wildflower with exceptional empathy. The title is the subject, pretty much literally, of this double album of musical narratives concerning the life-cycle of a flower. However, the suite, which is essentially what these 18 shortish pieces amount to, eschews soppy soft-focus pastoralism in favour of a gently extrovert sequence of melodies, textures and sonic metaphors that succeeds admirably. (L&H CD806151-31) ★★★★
To close on an item very different from all of the above, saxophonist Logan Richardson’s Afrofuturism shares its title with the parthistorical, part-speculative concept of the interpenetration of black culture and technology and the resulting possible and imagined sociopolitical outcomes. It’s a complex topic made no easier by the obfuscation of the white gaze, but Richardson’s is a hands-on approach in which he stirs the work of his live band into a rich soup of studio technology, gene-splicing Sun Ra with J Dilla and the reverbdrenched experiments of Khan Jamal. The recording struggles to contain the consequent tsunami of sound, but it’s compelling listening nonetheless. (Whirlwind WR4772) ★★★★
Roger Thomas enjoys Indo-jazz, trios and an album on the life-cycle of a flower