You can hear the spirit of Miles Davis in the music of trumpeter Avishai Cohen (Tel Aviv, 1978): ‘Like Davis, he can make the trumpet a vehicle for uttering the most poignant human cries,’ wrote The New York Times. Cohen played his first notes as a soloist in 1988. Later, when he was awarded a scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston, he was already an accomplished musician. And yet it was at that time – while playing in Smalls Jazz Club in New York – that he reached full maturity as a jazz musician. Cohen combines the melancholic undertone of traditional Israeli music with the vibe of American jazz; and he does so in his own compositions as well as his interpretations of the music of Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus and Ornette Coleman, among others. On Dark Nights, his latest album of standards and original compositions, (with bassist Omer Avital and drummer Nasheet Waits) Cohen combines lyricism with electrifying virtuosity.
