Jazz Notes: A real treat awaits with Anat Cohen
Anat Cohen and quartet perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Shwayder Theatre in the Jewish Community Center, 350 S. Dahlia St. Tickets are $15/$12 students, seniors and members, 303-316-6360.
INDenverTimes: Young jazz vocalist can’t hear ‘Can’t’
When clarinetist/saxophonist Anat Cohen takes the stage at Shwayder Theatre on Saturday with her quartet, jazz fans are in for a real treat. After all, the Israeli-born player is one of the fastest rising stars on the contemporary scene. A native of Tel Aviv, Cohen came to America in the mid-1990s to study tenor saxophonist at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. While there, trombonist Phil Wilson told her that she had a special “voice on the clarinet” – and was he ever on the money.
In 1999, Cohen, who explored a variety of South American music forms while in Boston, moved on to New York. Before long, she was creating quite a stir. Think of it this way: prior to 2005 and the release of her debut CD, Place and Time, Cohen’s name was no where to be found in Down Beat magazine’s annual poll of critics. Then, in 2005, she occupied the ninth spot among rising-star clarinet players. By 2006, she was second among rising-star clarinetists and 12th among rising-star soprano saxophonists.
The 2007 poll of critics found her in the top spot when it came to rising-star clarinetists, fifth among rising-star soprano players and ninth on the list of rising-star jazz artists overall. In the 2008 and 2009 polls, she continued to top the rising-star clarinet list, continued to be among the top three rising-stars on soprano and moved into the second spot as the rising-star jazz artist. The point, of course, is not to get carried away with lists. Instead, the poll results are useful in understanding how Cohen’s playing has captured the jazz world and why you should be at the Shwayder in the Jewish Community Center, 350 S. Dahlia, on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ($15/$12 students, seniors and members, 303-316-6360).
Cohen has performed in Denver at several Summit Jazz events in the past, but the chance to hear her with her own quartet is something else. That band features Frank Kimbrough on piano, Vicente Archer on bass and Daniel Freedman on drums. With the exception of Freedman, this isn’t the band on her discs on Anzic Records (the most recent of which is Notes from the Village), but it is one with outstanding players such as Kimbrough who has his own string of CDs out most recently on the Palmetto label.
Like her brothers (trumpeter Avishi and saxophonist Yuval), Cohen is part of an amazing wave of Israeli jazz artists to hit the scene in recent years. And her appearance is part of the Jewish Arts, Authors, Movies, Music (JAMM) event.
Aakash Mittal
Along with Saturday’s activities, Friday night offers a CD release party from saxophonist Aakash Mittal. Aakash’s new disc is titled Videsh which further explores the talented young saxophonist’s link to India within a jazz framework. His quartet plays at 7 and 9 p.m. ($10/$20 with CD). In recent years, the Boulder-raised saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa has emerged as a major name on the national jazz scene. Coming from similar roots, Mittal has a chance to do the same.
Then, on Sunday, trumpeter Rod McGaha, takes the stage at Dazzle at 7 p.m. ($15/$8 students). Raised in Chicago, McGaha, who moved to Nashville in the early 1990s, was mentored by Clark Terry and also worked with Max Roach. His current CD is called A Gentle Man, which follows an earlier disc titled Preacherman, and both display his ability to play straight-ahead in addition to his soul and funk talents.
Before all this occurs, the musical week kicks in tonight with trumpeter Pete Olstad bringing a tribute to the great trumpeter Clifford Brown (who died when he was just 25) to Dazzle at 7 and 9 p.m. ($15). Olstad has played in the big bands led by Woody Herman, Buddy Rich and Maynard Ferguson as well as with Blood, Sweat and Tears and far this date is joined by fellow trumpeter Al Hood.
Norman Provizer writes a Jazz Notes column on Fridays at kuvo.org. Provizer, who’s also a political science professor at Metropolitan State College of Denver, was a regular contributor to the Rocky Mountain News.
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