(Anat Cohen, reeds; Oded Lev-Ari, arranger/conductor; 18-piece orchestra)
Anat Cohen – Poetica – Anzic Records 1301, 65:12 *****:
(Anat Cohen, clarinet; Jason Lindner, piano; Omer Avital, bass; Daniel Freedman & Gilad, drums/percussion; String quartet – arr. by Omer Avital)
Don’t feel offline if you haven’t heard of Anat Cohen before – I hadn’t either. She’s an amazingly versatile multi-reed instrumentalist who hit New York City in 1999 from Israel, where she had grown up with musical siblings: her older brother – now a saxophonist of note, and her younger brother – a busy trumpet player – both in NYC. Anat started out on clarinet and listened to lots of Benny Goodman, and of course klezmer music. While studying at the Berklee School of Music in Boston she was exposed to world music of all sorts, and especially fell in love with Brazilian choro. She now plays with several different Brazilian music groups, as well as in David Ostwald’s Gully Low Jazz Band, which specializes in Louis Armstrong, Beiderbecke, Bechet and Jelly Roll Morton. She also plays tenor sax in the all-female Diva Jazz Orchestra. She’s appeared in Downbeat’s Critics’ Polls as a rising star on both clarinet and soprano sax.
These are Anat’s second and third albums on her own label, her first having been a well-received choros-centered effort. Noir has Anat on clarinet and tenor/alto/soprano sax backed by up to 18 musicians in lovely arrangements by Oded Lev-Ari. The ensemble includes three cellists and three other multi-reed players besides Anat and on one track also her older brother on soprano sax, so a rich woodwind sound with strings is a feature of many of the tracks. Others replicate a swinging big band, and some a samba ensemble. Sometimes two different genres meet head on (and become fast friends) during one track – as in the medley of Samba de Orfeu and Struttin’ With Some BBQ. The breakneck clarinet runs and yearning Portuguese melodies of the choros are not that different from her often-played klezmer music, says Cohen. She even found certain folk songs of South America to be similar to Hebrew songs with which she was familiar. In both La Comparsa and Carnaval de Sao Vicente arranger Lev-Ari gets the effect of the band approaching from afar and marching past the listener, though in the latter they stick around a bit longer. On how many albums would you find tunes from both Sun Ra and Johnny Ray cheek by jowl, I ask you? On the closing Pixinguinha/Lacerda tune, Ingenuo, the sound of Anat’s Choro Ensemble is emulated. The bass line of the tune is similar to that used by Pachelbel in his overly-famous Canon.
On Poetica Cohen sticks to clarinet, and is joined by a jazz quartet plus on many of the tracks a string quartet. The ten tracks include four Israeli songs, a Brazilian ballad, John Coltrane’s Lonnie’s Lament, two of her originals plus one by brother Avital, and a most moving instrumental version of the highly emotional Jacques Brel Chanson of the Old Lovers. Anat felt the need to make a clarinet album “that is neither classical nor swing.”…I tried to bring out the clarinet’s lyricism and show its different sonorities.” She also says “I like to be able to fit into a situation, not stand out, and become one with what’s going on.” And that she does most successfully on both of these highly recommended discs. She is truly a rising star of jazz to watch!
