Cross My Palm With Silver

Avishai Cohen

Cross My Palm With SilverCross My Palm With Silver
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Release date: 05.05.2017 ECM 2548
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A year after his impressionistic, critically-lauded ECM debut Into The Silence, trumpeter Avishai Cohen’s Cross My Palm With Silver introduces a programme of new pieces which put the focus on the ensemble, on teamwork, with a quartet of the highest calibre. The adroit, almost telepathic interplay among the musicians allows Avishai Cohen to soar, making it clear why he is one of the most talked-about jazz musicians on the contemporary scene. “All of these people together are my dream team”, says the charismatic trumpeter of fellow players Yonathan Avishai, Barak Mori and Nasheet Waits, who share his sense for daring improvisation and his feeling for structure. “I feel we’re in a perfect place with the balance. It’s open and there’s so much room for the improvisation to take the music any place we can. At the same time the composition is very specific and the vibe is very direct and thought about.” As with Into The Silence, Cross My Palm With Silver was produced by Manfred Eicher at Studios La Buissonne in the south of France. It is issued on the eve of a major European tour, with concerts in France, Italy, Spain, Luxembourg, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands.
Ein Jahr nach seinem impressionistischen ECM-Debüt "Into The Silence" meldet sich der Trompeter Avishai Cohen auf "Cross My Palm With Silver" mit einem neuen Programm zurück, bei dem der Fokus ganz auf dem Teamwork seines Ensembles liegt. Das agile, fast schon telepathische Zusammenspiel der Musiker erlaubt Avishai Cohen Höhenflüge, die deutlich machen, warum er einer der am stärksten beachteten Jazzmusiker der gegenwärtigen Szene ist. "Diese Leute sind mein 'Dream Team'", sagt Cohen über seine Mitspieler Yonathan Avishai, Barak Mori und Nasheet Waits. Die drei teilen mit dem charismatischen Trompeter den Sinn für kühne Improvisationen und auch das Gespür für Strukturen. "Ich habe den Eindruck, dass wir die perfekte Balance gefunden haben. Die Musik ist offen und gewährt uns soviel Raum für Improvisationen, dass wir die Musik in jedwede Richtung, die uns in den Sinn kommt, vorantreiben können. Zugleich sind die Kompositionen sehr spezifisch und die Atmosphäre ist direkt und durchdacht."
Featured Artists Recorded

September 2016, Studios La Buissonne, Pernes les Fontaines

Original Release Date

05.05.2017

Chacune des 5 compositions de Cohen porte sa spécificité. Le résultat? Splendide. Les spirales méditatives, les effets virtuoses de sourdine, la posture de retenue, le son d’une pureté infinie, la grâce des énoncés du soliste, tout cela ensorcèle.
Bruno Pfeiffer, Libération
 
Selbstverständlich spielen der israelische Trompeter und seine drei ausgezeichneten Mitmusiker einen sehr modernen, puls- statt groove-getriebenen Jazz. Aber die Bedachtsamkeit, die Coolness, mit der sie hier durch ihre verwinkelt melodischen Kompositionen gehen, die zieht einen unmittelbar in ihren Bann. Das kommt vom charismatischen Ton und der Banddichte.
Markus Schneider, Rolling Stone (German Edition)
 
Together, they play with the kind of intuitive sense one associates with a band who have played together for several years, as is the case here. At just five tracks, the album has a cohesion and brevity that belie its artful slow burn. These are quiet songs punctuated by moments of piercing intensity […] it's Cohen and his bandmates' deft improvisational skill and wide artistic sensibility, straddling straight-ahead jazz, classical, and the avant-garde, that helps make ‘Cross My Palm with Silver’ such a bright spot in his discography.
Matt Collar, All Music.com
 
Die fünf weitausgreifenden Kompositionen  des Musikers überzeugen, Yonathan Avishai am Klavier, Barak Mori am Bass und und Nasheet Waits am Schlagzeug sind kongeniale Partner. Jazz auf höchstem intellektuellen Niveau – und gleichwohl sinnlich. Ein Glück.
Manfred Papst, NZZ am Sonntag
 
Der Jazz dieses Quartetts klingt so präzise, als sei jeder Klavierakkord, jeder Blas-Ton, jeder Drum-Schlag geprüft und für richtig befunden worden. Die Stimmung: cool gelassen, mit unter wie in einem Film noir, in dem Robert Mitchum gleich die Dame an der Bar anspricht. Man möchte beim Zuhören fast wieder mit dem Rauchen anfangen.
Oliver Creutz, Stern
 
Every generation of jazz trumpeters revisits the legacy of Miles Davis in their own ways, but the Israeli rising star Avishai Cohen’s version of the journey has been particularly skilful. His new quartet brings in childhood bassist friend Barak Mori to join Yonathan Avishai and Nasheet Waits on piano and drums, often echoing the spaciousness and quiet melodic strength of last year’s compositionally dominant ‘Into the Silence’. The sense of ensemble conversation is more urgent, however, befitting the leader’s search for music that cherishes active empathy in a fractured world.
John Fordham, The Guardian
 
Avec ‚Cross My Palm With Silver‘, ce disciple de Lee Morgan et surtout de Miles Davis (qui hante littéralement chaque plague de ce disque), s’impose une fois de plus comme un subtil improvisateur, tout en nuances et en retenue, et comme un coloriste nè. Impressionniste.
Philippe Blanchet, Rolling Stone France
 
Schneidende Schärfe und wohlige Wärme, coole Distanz und emotionale Nähe – die Ausdrucksskala des aus Tel Aviv stammenden, spieltechnisch perfekten Trompeters Avishai Cohen kennt keine Beschränkungen. Dasselbe lässt sich von seinen fünf neuen, bis zu zwölf Minuten langen Eigenkompositionen sagen, die in perfekter Balance zwischen klaren Strukturen und freien Improvisationen pendeln.
Peter Füssl, Kultur
 
‚Cross My Palm With Silver‘ reste jusqu‘ aux ultimes roulements de caisse claire de Nasheet Waits et aux petites notes minerals jouées par Yonathan Avishai dans ’50 Years And Counting’, un disque-modèle d’invention subtile et d’ elegance feutrée.
Julien Ferté, Jazz Magazine
 
Auf seinem letzten Album ‘Into The Silence’ verarbeitete Cohen den Tod seines Vaters in einer sechsteiligen Suite, die seine Trauer in eine glasklare Emotionalität kanalisierte. Auch sein neues Album ‚Cross My Palm With Silver‘ wird von so einer tiefen und klaren Emotionalität bestimmt. Diesmal wurzelt die allerdings nicht im Privaten, sondern im Politischen […] Das Quartett bleibt aber in der Tradition des Modern Jazz, politische Wut und Verzweiflung zu abstrahieren. Das kann er mit seinem kräftigen Ton auch ohne Furor. Sicher muss sich Cohen auch Vergleiche mit Miles Davis gefallen lassen, vor allem mit dessen melancholischer Phase kurz vor den Ausbrüchen mit seinem späten Quintett und den elektrischen Bands. Doch das ist in diesem Fall als Kompliment gemeint.
Andrian Kreye, Süddeutsche Zeitung
A year after his impressionistic, critically-lauded ECM debut Into The Silence, Avishai Cohen’s Cross My Palm With Silver introduces a programme of new pieces which put the focus on the ensemble, on teamwork, with an exceptional quartet. The adroit interplay among the musicians allows Avishai Cohen to soar, making it clear why the pure-toned trumpeter is one of the most talked-about jazz musicians on the contemporary scene.
 
“All of these people together are my dream team”, says Cohen of fellow players Yonathan Avishai, Barak Mori and Nasheet Waits, who share his sense for daring improvisation and his feeling for structure. “I feel we’re in a perfect place with the balance. It’s open and there’s so much room for the improvisation to take the music any place we can. At the same time the composition is very specific and the vibe is very direct and thought about.” Cohen praises drummer Nasheet Waits, a musical partner for more than a decade, for “allowing the music to grow in an amazing way. I’ve never heard him play the same thing twice. A groove or beat never sounds the same. Spending time on the road with him is always inspiring. For me, he is a real link to the tradition and to the masters.”
 
The arrival of bassist Barak Mori, a friend since high school days, has “tied the band together,” says Cohen: “His swing feel is incredible. Every little note he plays is so clear and so pretty.” Pianist Yonathan Avishai is Cohen’s “musical brother – a big part of my musical journey” ­– they started out together in Tel Aviv, aged 12, and through formative years “played everything from Ornette Coleman music to standards, Gershwin and Duke, always trying to go deeper. Never taking things for granted, keeping the search active.”
 
The quartet spent much of last year on the road and, shortly before the recording session in September 2016, Cohen began to ease the material he had been writing since Into The Silence into the live set. Into The Silence had been a very personal statement, written soon after the death of Cohen’s father. Its reflections on mortality were conveyed with an expressive grace and yearning lyricism that struck a responsive chord with many listeners. This time there was no over-arching thematic concept: “But I still used the same rules I’d given myself for the first album,” Cohen says. “Which were: to stay attuned to the current situation in my life and not go back to any older material of mine.”
 
Avishai Cohen wrote the music in Israel, the political climate in the Middle East and elsewhere inducing a familiar sense of helplessness. Like Mingus or Max Roach before him, Cohen uses his song titles to point to injustices at home and abroad as a small gesture of dissent. Meanwhile the beauty of the music makes its own argument.
 
“I’m affected by what happens in my country and in the world…And by how politics divides us as people. At least to me, this music raises some question about what it is we are here to do. There’s a beautiful phrase in Judaism: if you save one soul it’s as if you saved the whole world. Change should start from there. Each of us should do whatever we can to be compassionate. I don’t know how much the music represents that, but that’s what I was feeling when I was writing it.”
 
As with Into The Silence, Cross My Palm With Silver was produced by Manfred Eicher at Studios La Buissonne in the south of France. It is issued on the eve of a major European tour, with concerts in France, Italy, Spain, Luxembourg, Great Britain, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands.
YEAR DATE VENUE LOCATION
2025 June 15 Framed Fest- Kleiner Wasserspeicher Berlin, Germany
2025 July 04 Love Supreme Festival Glynde, United Kingdom
2025 July 11 North Sea Jazz Festival Rotterdam, Netherlands

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