Blue Note – Avishai Cohen (b, v, p), Karen Malka (v), Shai Maestro (p), Amos Hoffman (oud), Itamar Doari (perc, v), Jenny Nilsson (v), Jimmy Greene (ss, ts), Lars Nilsson (fhn), Bjorn Samuelsson (tb) and Bjorn Bholin (cor anglais). Rec. September-October 2010

Avishai Cohen is one of the most influential contemporary jazz artists around today. That’s not only in terms of his highly expressive virtuosity on double bass, as Chick Corea will concur having admired and hired him as a regular sideman and recording artist for an extensive period in New York in the 1990s-2000s. But it’s also as a leader-composer that Cohen has excelled, creating a unique soundworld that’s all his own, a kind of seductive landscape full of infectious semitic-Mediterranean melody, meditative groove and latinangled jazz that has won him an international audience comparable to some of the biggest names. 2009’s Aurora saw him turn his back on his more recent jazz trio settings and focus on vocals, his own too, and material that has a pop-like simplicity, ironic perhaps considering it was his debut for quintessential Blue Note. But some of it fell short of his best.

Seven Seas makes more space for Cohen’s jazz sensibilities with sensual, minor-ish latin horn parts, and some fiery improv from Cohen, the scintillating Israeli regular pianist Shai Maestro and explosive guest saxophonist Jimmy Greene. Like Aurora though, this is still a recording heavy on song-based titles sung in the languages of Hebrew, Ladino and Yiddish from his Jewish background, but for the most part they’re of the subtly tender, percussive, wordless variety. As such it’s a kind of distillation of Cohen’s work up to now that’s a happy medium for his very special talents.

- Selwyn Harris