Rating:
Genre:
Jazz
Release Date: 07/17/2007
Avishai Cohen's
After the Big Rain is an ambitious, earthy and endlessly surprising work that finds the trumpeter/composer melding
post-bop,
avant-garde jazz, African
folk music and electric soundscapes. Having been a force on the downtown NYC
jazz scene since the '90s,
Cohen has made a name for himself as an adventurous, forward-thinking musician performing in various ensembles that mixed everything from
klezmer and
free jazz to swinging
hard bop and
post-rock. Here,
Cohen takes his world music inclinations one step further partnering with West African vocalist/guitarist
Lionel Loueke on a series of loosely connected pieces that strongly feature
Loueke's moody singing and percussive guitar. Interestingly, the album often sounds more like African
folk music than
jazz with
Loueke setting a song up and then
Cohen with his muted/electronically enhanced trumpet and keyboardist
Jason Linder's wave-like Fender Rhoades joining in organically after a few bars.
Cohen himself is a fire brand of an improviser who evinces both a
Miles Davis-like sense of harmonic color and a knack for muscular, knotty
Woody Shaw-inspired improvisational lines. Here, he mixes both styles liberally, often bumping against
Yosvany Terry's rhythmic "jack-in-the-box" sounding chereke playing. In many ways,
After the Big Rain harkens back to trumpeter
Don Cherry's stellar 1975
jazz/world
fusion album
Brown Rice and in a similar sense is a moving and enveloping early masterwork.
~Matt Collar, All Music Guide
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