Noa Levy & Shimpei Ogawa - "You, Me & Cole

Music is an international language, and jazz is America’s greatest cultural contribution to the conversation. Nothing exemplifies that more than YOU, ME & COLE, the debut CD by vocalist NOA LEVY and bass player SHIMPEI OGAWA. Levy is an Israeli, who is currently living in San Francisco, and Ogawa is from Japan and currently living in New York City. YOU, ME & COLE is a duo album featuring Levy’s sultry voice replete with intimate shadings and Ogawa’s endlessly inventive bass playing. 

The arrangements subtly reflect their native cultures and their wide exposure to an entire world of musical genres. Levy and Ogawa met and began performing together in the San Francisco Bay Area, where they were both recent expats on a new scene. Levy and Ogawa began playing together for a jazz history class at the California Jazz Conservatory. They were on the same musical wavelength and enjoyed the give-and-take that the duo format afforded them, so they started performing in clubs around the Bay Area. Cole Porter was one of their favorites.

Levy and Ogawa are true jazz musicians. They have absorbed a variety of musical styles, which, in their expert hands, they have turned into highly engaging and accessible interpretations that give them the space to play with phrasing and harmony. They have mined Brazilian and Middle Eastern music, as well as the blues and even Bach, for inspiration. On YOU, ME & COLE, Noa Levy and Shimpei Ogawa have created a fresh, individualistic expression of these Cole Porter songs that have been around for decades.