Hi
a review for last Avishai's CD on air in the next few days on
RADIOVINILEMANIA in Italy:

http://www.vinilemania.net/vAVISHAICOHEN.htm

Ciao P

courtesy: http://www.allaboutjazz.com


Continuo
Avishai Cohen | Razdaz Records (2006)
By Paul Olson

No bassist on the contemporary jazz scene is more technically able
than Avishai Cohen, nor more immediately recognizable on a
recording: his muscular, singing tone and richly melodic lines are
unique. He's also got one of the tightest trios on earth, and the
countless gigs pianist Sam Barsh and drummer Mark Guiliana have
played with Cohen are immediately audible on Continuo.
Cohen's 2005 album At Home suffered from too many disparate styles
and too many extra musicians augmenting the trio—it felt more like a
Cohen compilation than a unified musical statement. There's no lack
of stylistic unity on Continuo, however, and only one extra musician
is featured here: oud player Amos Hoffman, who appears on five on
the ten tracks.


To his credit, Cohen's attempting something altogether new on
Continuo: a stylistic blend of western classical, Middle Eastern
music (hence the presence of Hoffman's oud), and improvisational
jazz. "Nu Nu" epitomizes the concept with its stop-on-a-dime time
changes, unison bass/piano lines, epic theme and virtuosic soloing
(in this case by Cohen and Hoffman). The execution is above reproach—
here and everywhere on the CD, the band plays with breathtaking
precision.


Somehow, though, the aforementioned musical influences combine here
to produce a strange and rather disagreeable hybrid that in its
bombastic, grandiose themes resembles nothing so much as the worst
sorts of instrumental Europop. This impression is heightened by
arrangements that feature Barsh's busy, mock-classical piano, an
overuse of pomp-and-circumstance unison bass/piano accents (lots of
dramatic, echoing "booms" in song after song), and the recording's
hot, loud, no-dynamics mastering.

"One For Mark" is an uptempo piece that's flawlessly played and
ultimately pretty meaningless; with plenty of oud-strangling from
Hoffman over Guiliana's torrential drum cascades and wildly florid
piano from Barsh, there's no dearth of sound coming out of the
speakers, but it's all more precious than profound. Cohen's solo
here has a marvelous rhythmic buoyancy, but it can't save the song.
Unfortunately, "One For Mark" is no anomaly; it's perfectly typical
of the tunes on Continuo.


"Samuel" is somewhat better. Its piano introduction has a practice-
book sterility and it's marred by more of those overdramatic
bass/piano accents, but Cohen and Barsh are particularly
sympathetically fused here and its final snare-roll groove is
irresistible. The title track—which unfortunately appears last—is by
far the best song, fuelled as it is by a propulsive and joyous
Middle Eastern rhythmic structure of drums, percussion and hand
claps. It's more fun and less self-consciously important than
anything that precedes it. The absence of Barsh's piano on the song—
despite the enormous, prowling presence here of Cohen's electric six-
string Marco—gives it a spaciousness that's sadly missing elsewhere.


To their credit, the musicians play every song on Continuo with
complete commitment and telepathic connectedness. If the results are
gratingly soulless, it's not due to a lack of sincerity on the part
of the artists.

Visit Avishai Cohen on the web.
Avishai Cohen at All About Jazz.


Track listing: Nu Nu; Elli; One For Mark; Ani Maamin; Samuel;
Emotional Storm; Calm; Arava; Smash; Continuo.

Personnel: Avishai Cohen: acoustic and electric bass; Sam Barsh:
piano (1-9), electric keyboard (#9); Mark Guiliana: drums,
percussion; Amos Hoffman: oud (1,3,6,9-10).

Style: Modern Jazz/Free Improvisation