In a stirring follow-up to its 2017 debut Happy Song, the
Anat Cohen Tentet reaches a new crest in its evolution with Triple Helix. The
album's centerpiece is a three-movement concerto composed for Cohen and the
tentet, the Grammy-nominated clarinet virtuoso, by her longtime collaborator
Oded Lev-Ari, the Tentet's musical director. Commissioned by New York's
Carnegie Hall and Chicago's Symphony Center for live world premieres earlier in
2019, "Triple Helix" won raves from The Chicago Tribune as "a
work of considerable expressive reach" and a "sensuous tonal
palette," with Cohen "sounding like a musician transformed."
Those qualities are abundantly evident in the album version,
conducted by Lev-Ari as he also did onstage in New York and Chicago,
highlighting Cohen at her most "fresh, sophisticated and daring"
(JazzTimes). The Tentet, a vibrant mix of ace New York players, bring a wealth
of color to the new work, which defies all stylistic pigeonholing: weaving in
and out we hear the sumptuous brass of Nadje Noordhuis and Nick Finzer, the
robust baritone sax of Owen Browder, the sonically enriching vibraphone and
percussion of James Shipp, the lithe and versatile cello of Christopher
Hoffman, the radiant piano and accordion of Vitor Gonçalves, the edgy yet
ingeniously integrated solid-body guitar of Sheryl Bailey and the decisive and
driving rhythm section work of bassist Tal Mashiach and drummer Anthony
Pinciotti.
"Oded knows my playing as well as anyone, and he never
reaches for the obvious, so there's an edge of surprise to whatever he
does," Cohen marvels. The concerto, Lev-Ari explains, "wasn't
designed as a feature for Anat as a soloist with just an ensemble backdrop. I
wrote it for her as the leader of an organic, interactive band, the Tentet, and
the way they play together live. I composed the concerto like a tailor leaving
a lot of slack in a suit: we can really let it out and expand it if we want to.
It's the most technically demanding thing I've ever written for her, knowing as
I do what's in her fingers and what she's capable of on the clarinet."
Indeed the longstanding musical relationship of Cohen and Lev-Ari finds
precedent in the storied bond of collaborators like Miles Davis & Gil Evans,
or in Duke Ellington's use of specific idiomatic writing for featured soloists
and band members.
Continuing to blaze a trail as a poll-winning clarinetist
and far-sighted bandleader, Cohen delves into the wealth of ideas summoned by
Lev-Ari on "Triple Helix": classical and contemporary sounds,
Americana lyricism, Latin and Middle Eastern rhythms and more. The clarinet
trill at the outset hints briefly at Rhapsody in Blue, subtly proposing a
21st-century perspective on Gershwin's model of hybrid-genre works for the
concert hall.
Opening the album is one of the six non-suite tracks,
Lev-Ari's luxuriant arrangement of "Milonga Del Angel" by the late
Astor Piazzolla, setting a slow and haunting South American mood from the
outset. Cohen reveals her unsurpassed clarinet tone as the Tentet's adroit,
endlessly subtle approach to counterpoint, call-and-response and texture comes
clearly into focus. Cohen later weighs in with her own "Miri" and
"Footsteps & Smiles": the former a model of balladic restraint
working up to harmonic passages of beguiling modernity; the latter a riot of
clave rhythm and momentum, with shades of boogaloo and what one could call
chamber-funk (solos by Shipp and Cohen, a breakout piano statement from
Gonçalves, and a funk breakdown with bari sax and pizzicato cello keep this
whimsical, anarchic tune on steady course). "Morning Melody
(Epilogue)," Cohen's brief sendoff and set closer, coaxes the distinctive
voices of individual instruments in turn, then places them in combination,
offering a more intimate view of the band's inner workings.
Two more resourceful Lev-Ari arrangements complete the
program: the traditional Mexican "La Llorana" (crying woman) opens in
an abstract rubato vein with achingly dissonant sectional harmony, setting up
another breathtaking clarinet melodic feature for Cohen and an ensemble
showpiece for the band. "Lonesome Train," composed by Gene Roland for
the Stan Kenton band in 1952, is recrafted by Lev-Ari to suit the Tentet's
idiosyncratic strengths. Cohen and her bandmates seem to evoke the swinging,
noir-ish vocal part performed by Kay Brown. On both these arrangements, Bailey
contributes enticing elements of grit and grain, well outside the more
traditional jazz guitar approach.
The Anat Cohen Tentet has grown from workshops at
Shapeshifter Lab in Brooklyn to multi-night runs of rousing club experiences at
the Jazz Standard in Manhattan as well as high-profile engagements at the
Newport, Monterey and SFJazz Festivals. The band's upcoming Los Angeles double
bill with the great Maria Schneider Orchestra (at Disney Hall, April 19, 2020)
positions the Tentet in the first line of large ensemble jazz of our time. In
addition to Cohen's staggering versatility (on clarinet and tenor saxophone as
well), and her mature command of such a wide range of musical idioms, she has
found in the Tentet a vehicle like no other: one band that can explore all the
styles and artistic pathways to which she's so eagerly dedicated herself. In
the process she weaves these diverging strands into a style and an experience
all her own.
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