[TR24][OF] Avishai Cohen - Seven Seas - 2011 (Contemporary Jazz)

Now one of the most popular jazz players of the past decade, Avishai Cohen takes his artistic approach to its zenith, with Seven Seas. Featuring nursery rhymes, lullabies and suites in which heroic inspiration and symphonics abound. Seven Seas plunges us into a fabulous sound voyage, in which understatement and magnitude play a never-ending game of ping-pong, a trip that easily transposes to the silver screen. Once you get past the opening credits dripping in joyful nostalgia, you steer past isles of rhythm and continents of sound, winding up with a traditional piano ladino with Cohen’s intense vocals. Cohen has reached a new pinnacle as an artist. It’s more of a fusion album, perhaps bringing us closer to reality of an odyssey, with its title that transports us into nautical legend: seven seas’ many twists and turns make it the most exciting of albums in Cohen’s discography.
Seven Seas is another exceptional chapter in the Cohen catalog, one that showcases a willingness to stretch itself to the breaking point and open up the music to a wider array of approaches. It is one of his most spontaneous recordings, with both disciplinarian and freewheeling sense of adventurous interaction. In general, there is a spirit of true exploration on his records which is also evident here, with adventurous improvisation added to that blend of Mediterranean melodies (with touches of Ladino/Judeo-Spanish heritage) and the art of jazz. As always, he successfully blends, extracts, adapts, and layers one set of music onto another, through a personal approach to music making. In the constant sonic middle ground, there are the sounds of piano, bass and percussion, and the occasional oud and brass ensemble, that merge the melody and rhythm brilliantly. Seven Seas is a remarkable album; most impressive is Cohen's clarity of vision, which is what separates the boys from men. Cohen knows what he wants and, even better, he knows how to achieve it. The album's immediate attraction is its loose, fresh informality, a spontaneous and sparkling liveliness. The result of this unlikely union is one of the most seamlessly beautiful works Cohen has ever produced.