Choose artist...
Stories   >   On 'Naked Truth' Avishai Cohen climbs an unexpected plateau with a relaxed sound / Off Topic

Stories for December 09, 2024

Top 10 for Dec

More Albums with Avishai Cohen

On 'Naked Truth' Avishai Cohen climbs an unexpected plateau with a relaxed sound / Off Topic

Posted: March 3, 2022

Off Topic's Riccardo Talamazzi writes…The path of the trumpeter Avishai Cohen - not to be confused with the double bass player of the same name - fully reflects the ancient concept of “Pathei Mathos”, whereby knowledge is reached through struggle and suffering. So says Cohen himself, focusing attention on the starting point of all this work, that is, on the restless theme that is felt at the beginning of the second piece of Naked Truth , the latest ECM release.. A melodic lump that will spin in Cohen's mind for about two years, before being developed and experienced through an almost completely improvised opera like this one. In all the works in which the extemporaneous composition is predominant, sometimes the instrumental orbits become very irregular, unadorned not by choice but by the need for mutual understanding between the instruments. As if at times the conversation were interrupted, he would stumble in fear of losing the common thread, forced to attentive vigilance by the autonomous dynamics of the so improvised sound flow. All this is very natural and justifiable, however one gets the impression that the best aspects of this "naked truth" are those in which a more reasoned, more meditated intervention is perceived, in which the temptation to let oneself go to the current of extemporaneousness tends to diminish. However, Poetry is never lacking and I am not speaking only of the one recited by Cohen himself, who engages in a work of the Israeli poetess Zelda Schneersohn Mishovsky as she appears in the last piece Departure together with the commentary of a musical background. The whole album vibrates with a pervasive poetic feeling aimed at the search for an inner truth, a convinced parrhesia that places Man in front of the mirror of his own conscience to be able to recognize himself or not but in any case without escaping his own and profound revelation of himself. An existential research, therefore, as well as a purely musical journey.

The vulnerable voice of Cohen's trumpet is sustained by the intervention of Yonathan Avishai 's piano, Barak Mori 's double bass and Ziv Ravitz 's drums . In assembling his musicians, Cohen asked them to listen in advance to the Indian flute musician "bansuri" Harisprasad Chaurasia and to pay attention to the sound economy of his instrument, thus asking them to stay as close as possible to an analogue expressive essentiality. He then asked the drummer to be as light as possible, so as not to disturb the hypnotic and murmuring rhythmic flow of the songs with accentuated percussion. The sequence of the album's tracks is divided into eight parts, with the addition of the last mentioned Departure.

Part 1 presents itself with some notes blown softly by the trumpet and the double bass that goes around it. A simple two-way dialogue that sums up very well the sense of recollection that we will listen to further. Thus we arrive at the famous Part 2, the origin of Cohen's inspirational modal tension. A minor chord, in arpeggio, with the addition of an extra ninth and fifth that enter and leave the supporting structure of the chord, triggering a torsive movement on which the trumpet initially describes circularities, at first narrower until they widen and catch higher notes , almost jarring. The piano also extends, however more linearly, while remaining anchored to the fundamental, with the double bass and drums participating in the dreamlike atmosphere of the piece.Part 3 is one of the best and most engaging pieces of Naked Truth. Impressive start with a piano arpeggio and a dramatic descending scale of the double bass, with some passage from the rather classical imprint of Yonathan Avishai to the entrance of the trumpet almost in a low voice. The role of the bass is very important and also takes care of drawing an added melodic line while waiting for the role of Cohen. The piano takes on an accompaniment that smells of romanticism, the trumpet passes from murmuring to sob and the piece closes with an ending very similar to the initial phase. Part 4announces itself with a very soft and short drum solo. Trumpet and percussion trigger a spirited dialogue in solitude to which a few double bass notes are added secondarily. The entrance to the top changes the cards on the table a bit by adding tonal and harmonic color to the composition. Unfortunately she emerges a few moments of tiredness, with the impression that the group loses the Ariadne's thread and does not know where to end, especially in the final.

Part 5 , on the other hand, is an exquisite piano interlude, with Debussyian brushstrokes and titillating dissonances. All too short, as well as the percussive interlude of Part 6 which serves to introduce the following Part 7. Now, if there were not this pianist, in this record, it would be necessary to invent it, because it is precisely the piano that seems to decide the orientations, the equilibrium, the mysterious poetic magnetism that animates the album. Without taking anything away from Cohen, one gets the impression that the pianist constitutes the true gravity center of the work, a source of light around which all the other instruments rotate. And it's still the plan that sets up Part 8designing, together with the double bass and the moderate hints of the drums, the ideal support for Cohen. Her trumpet is very expressive, at times it releases heat and at times it feels cold as frost, but it keeps intact that Apollonian profile that has always characterized it and not only in this last album. Departure, as already mentioned initially, is a poem by the poet Zelda Schneersohn Mishkovsky, a first-rate literary reference in Jewish culture. The verses are lulled by a very soft accompaniment of the group and are well pronounced and scanned by Cohen and also intelligently published within the booklet. Departure,as this title already suggests, it speaks of the departure towards death, of what it is necessary to leave behind, of the direction that will lead us beyond the sense of Good and Evil. The verses tell what will be the yearning to leave the world behind us and all the things that could have been and have not been. But the overall tone of the poem is almost an invitation to recognize with sweetness and gratitude what was beautiful and good around us.

Nice work, this one by Avishai Cohen, who climbed this unexpected plateau of the Spirit with a dull, relaxed sound, a lyrical and rarefied verb, from which all the colors of his song resound. And above all great merit to the band that followed the leader's instructions, committing themselves to building that initiatory zone of silence paradoxically hidden in the center of this music. 

SEE THE Off Topic PAGE