Natural Connection
Avishai Cohen
Avishai Cohen’s ambitious CD/DVD project, As Is… Live at the Blue Note, captures the Israeli-born composer’s urgent, highly interactive playing during a set recorded last summer at the famed Manhattan jazz club. Using his virtuosic, aggressively physical upright approach on a set that draws from last year’s Continuo album and features an inventive redesign of Duke Ellington’s “Caravan,” Cohen adds percussive slaps on the sides of his bass and hard right-hand strums to more conventional upright technique. Originally a pianist who switched to electric, and later, upright bass, Avishai writes compositions that draw from Middle Eastern and Western traditions and are characterized by mellow melodies and rhythm-tricked riffs that mix jazz, classical, and funk elements.
As a musician who first played piano, how did you settle on the upright bass?
The bass is an instrument that found me as much as I found it, and it became my voice, instrumentally. I’ll never know exactly why. But something really true happened with the upright bass, and it has become my extension.
What is the bass’ role in your music?
Whatever it can be and wants to be. As the anchor and the foundation of the whole thing, bassists have a soft and quiet power that requires a certain maturity and depth. Without the bass, there’s no soprano, or upper register, and no middle, so you have a big responsibility—and you have to be cool with that.
Your compositions typically incorporate jazz, classical, and Middle Eastern influences. Do you make a conscious effort to mix genres?
It’s never conscious. I’m an emotionally charged person, and the mix is the result of the flow that comes through me. I combine a musical urge with the ability to express what I hear with musical vocabulary and language. The music is a migration of many things coming into one. It’s a very natural process for me. I don’t see barriers between different styles of music; as long as you are expressing your true emotion successfully through your music, the genre doesn’t matter.
Is there any particular tone that you try to get on the upright?
I like Charles Mingus’s and John Patitucci’s sounds. I’m also drawn to Latin bass players, like Cachao and Andy Gonzalez. But I’m also interested in other sounds, like Jaco Pastorius’s electric sound, the oud [an Arabic lute], and Paco de Lucía’s flamenco guitar. I try to pull all of them together, with other earthy influences that have a connection to nature.
just the facts
CAN BE HEARD ON
Avishai Cohen, As Is . . . Live at the Blue Note [Half Note/Razdaz, 2007],
Continuo [Sunnyside, 2006];
Diego Urcola, Viva [CAMJazz, 2006];
Chick Corea & Origin, Rendezvous in New York (DVD) [Image, 2006]
CURRENTLY SPINNING
Camarón and Paco de Lucía, El Camarón de la Isla con la colaboración especial de Paco de Lucía [Universal, 1969];
Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life [Motown, 1976];
Jerry Gonzalez, Y los Piratas del Flamenco [Lola, 2004]
GEAR
Basses: Circa-1910 carved G.A. Pfretzschner upright with a David Gage Realist pickup and strung with Thomastik Spirocore Weichs, ’73 Fender Jazz Bass and custom Marco 5- and 6-strings with GHS Super Steels
Rig:
Aguilar AG 500SC head and GS 410 4x10 cabinet
Avishai amplifies his upright through a mix of the Realist pickup and an Electro-Voice RE20 mic.
