At Home is the 6th Solo Album for Avishai Cohen:
Down Beat (p.60) - "AT HOME is filled with the kind of virtuosic soloing and portentous writing that marked Pastorius' career outside Weather Report. Cohen's compositions are characterized by big gestures, rapid movement and cyclical rhythm patterns."
JazzTimes (pp.98-100) - "There are lyrical flourishes scattered about the album, but it's clear that polyrhythmic pulse and textural layering are where Cohen is, to use his phrase, most at home."

Recordings that dabble in a variety of genres take the risk of sounding unfocused; all too often artists with diverse interests and influences are unable to find the thread that draws everything together, resulting in an apparent lack of direction. Fortunately this is not the case with Avishai Cohen who, with Lyla, has created a cosmopolitan effort that blurs the boundaries between jazz, pop, hip-hop and world music.

Cohen, who first created a name for himself as a bassist with Chick Corea’s Origin and New Trio, has been moving towards this for some time. While his bass playing still figures prominently in the blend, he often-times relinquishes bass duties to Yagil Baras, instead playing a variety of keyboards and providing vocals on a few tracks. But Lyla’s real strength is in the composition, arrangement and production.

Bassist Avishai Cohen on his own projects mixes together adventurous jazz with influences from world music, original folk melodies, and his own creativity. He composed 12 selections for his second CD, 1999's DEVOTION, including tributes to Horace Silver and Chick Corea (which do not really sound that close to either of those pianist/composer's styles). The music is consistently unpredictable, with Cohen being joined by pianist Jason Lindner, drummer Jeff Ballard, Jimmy Greene on reeds, trombonist Steve Davis, guitarist Amos Hoffman, a string quartet, and up to five singers (who are mostly used in the background). An intriguing set by an up-and-coming composer who is also a very fluent bassist.

In 2006 Zamir, now back in Israel, shot into the Israeli public consciousness with his well received Amen, featuring collections and reworkings of previous compositions. Featuring the best jazz players from the holy land such as: Omri Mor (Piano), Omer Avital (Bass), Daniel Friedman (Drums) , Avishai Cohen (Trumpet)
All together they are creating an amazing record that is truly spirtual and uplifting in any way.

There has been a happy and meaningful trend in popular Israeli music over the past few years of reexamination of Jewish roots and modern musical interpretations including classic Jewish songs and texts.
With his previous album, Amen, saxophonist Daniel Zamir broke the barriers of traditional Jazz afficionados by selling over ten thousand copies in Israel alone.
On this fantastic album, Zamir continues his explorations of Jewish texts and melodies in a Jazz context. The result is both highly enterteining and very inspiring.

Daniel Zamir, whose first three CDs for Tzadik contain some of the most passionate and sophisticated blending of Jewish Music and Jazz ever recorded returns to Tzadik after a five-year hiatus in Israel to present his complex musical vision with a dynamic new quartet. Joined by three of the most exciting musicians in the New York Jazz scene, pianist Uri Caine, bassist Greg Cohen and percussionist extraordinaire Joey Baron, Zamir’s music takes on a more mature and spiritual quality. This is New Jewish instrumental music at its very best

The debut release from Daniel Zamir's SATLAH trio features hot, klezmer-influenced jazz originals by the excellent young altoist. With the exception of the traditional "Hasar Hamemuneh," the pieces are all named as (chronologically) numbered poems so that, according to Zamir, the listener can think of whatever they want instead of being influenced toward certain associations by more evocative song titles. With a strong rhythm section of bassist Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz and percussionist Kevin Zubek, SATLAH moves through kicking, upbeat numbers like the opening cut, "The Theme & Poem 16"; terrific grooves with soaring alto (such as "Poem 1" and "Poem 22"); and quiet moments such as "Poem 12B," which also includes bell ringing and sound bites of a synagogue service.

An arresting duo set from Joelle Leandre & George Lewis -- a performance from the2008 Vision Festival in NYC -- with Lewis' trombone dancing around, breezing in & out, challenging, and complimenting Leandre's resonant, impassioned, and imposing work on double bass. It was a highly acclaimed performance at the time, as well it should have been, and much thanks should go to the Rogue Art label for documenting and releasing it. There's an intuitive vigor throughout that's really something else, whether the duo is playing in somewhat straightforward patterns (occasionally) or coaxing strange new textures (often), it's pretty thrilling stuff! 7 pieces, Transatlantic Visions"(Parts I-VII), running close to an hour

Complex compositions and arrangements move between various musical arenas in a way which seems nearly impossible. Different songs feature influences of hard-rock, surf, punk, goth, power-pop and other genres.
Eatliz first appeared in the Israeli indie scene in September 2002 and has been playing a significant role in it ever since. The group has earned its following through word to mouth and extensive touring of Tel Aviv clubs. Eatliz’s fans used to invite others to come and see “the best band you haven’t heard yet”, but that has changed in October 2007, when Eatliz joined the Management and Record Label “Anova Music” and released their full length debut “Violently Delicate”.

In the current political climates it is sometimes difficult to remain open minded about other cultures and ways of life. Oi Va Voi will hopefully change all of that. With such skills of musically variety, their second self entitled album sonically encapsulates a world of increasing diverse people. Fusing jazz, hip hop, Jewish klezmer and everything in between, their music is all encompassing.

And now for something rather different on these pages. Oi Va Voi makes music that may owe as much, or more, to current electronica and trance dance beats as to traditional Jewish music. The result is a refreshing, danceable - how could the hip hop wedding of klezmer and electronica be anything else?

If anything else, the album is a statement of fragmented identities. The album opens with "Refugee". The song laces an underlying dance beat and ambivalent lyrics (a personal odyssey? a national one?) to immediately pull the listener in. "Yesterday's Mistakes," playing back and forth between English lyrics and Hebrew chant, followed by "Od Yeshoma", setting the traditional text to a new dance beat reminiscent of recent work by Ladino singer Sarah Aroeste continue to cultural exploration and fusion. Later on the album the band will sing in Yiddish, Hungarian?, Hebrew, Ladino, and more.

The first surprise is that such a good record can pop up with so little warning, a collection of 12 songs just like an album from another era, and almost every track worthy of inclusion in its own right. The second is that it had seemed safe to assume Oi Va Voi had disappeared for ever, after their three previous shots had failed to hit their targets.
The third realisation is that the UK finally has a band to match the best of the current American groups who are exploring alternatives to the guitar, bass, keyboard and drum line-up that has become such a cliche of international alternative music. Watch out, Calexico, DeVotchKa, A Hawk and a Hacksaw, Beirut, you have company. Pizzicato violin and rattling percussion launch this record and an ensemble of clarinet, trumpet and soaring violin soon establish that this music is not to be lumped in with anything else you've heard recently.

Handling the acoustic bass like a flamenco guitar, then applying the blues, newcomer Avishai Cohen has produced a session in the modern mainstream with considerable intensity. The "fire" comes from his writing; these are all the bassist's compositions except for the standard "Besame Mucho." In putting together his arrangements, Cohen mixes meters in various combinations, allowing them to shift frequently, and couples that concept with a built-in intensity through his harmonic approach. With a core trio consisting of bassist Cohen, pianist Jason Lindner and drummer Jeff Ballard, the melodies are presented with a nod to the leader's improvisational strengths. Soprano saxophonist Steve Wilson and trombonist Steve Davis provide support as well.

After a too long waiting of eight years, the oriental sun is finally shining again on your heads. My friends one of the most innovative and fantastic band from Israel is back with an album that we can already call legend. "Mabool, the Story of the Three Sons of Seven" is the fourth album of the band, and even if their others album are damn great, I must just say that this time the band knew how to do something that everyone can [must] like and fore sure will not be able to forget.
A GREAT ALBUM!!! YOU'LL LOVE IT FOR SURE!

Curtis Mayfield was a driving force in black music from the early '60s through the mid-'70s, as a singer, writer, producer, and label owner.
Mayfield began singing with gospel groups such as the Northern Jubilee Singers, who were part of his grandmother's Traveling Soul Spiritualist Church. He met lifelong friend and collaborator Jerry Butler at a gospel function, and they went on to form the Impressions, a rhythm & blues vocal group, in 1957. In 1958 they, along with Sam Gooden and Richard and Arthur Brooks, recorded "For Your Precious Love" on Vee-Jay Records. Butler's cool baritone dominated the record, and he left to pursue a solo career. Mayfield and Butler teamed up again in 1960, with Butler singing and Mayfield writing and playing guitar on "He Will Break Your Heart" (Number Seven pop, Number One R&B). A re-formed Impressions with Mayfield, Gooden, and Fred Cash signed with ABC-Paramount and scored with Mayfield's flamenco-styled "Gypsy Woman" (Number 20 pop, Number Two R&B).