FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
International Clarinet Superstar Anat Cohen Presents the Dynamically Orchestrated Happy Song, Featuring Her Spirited New York Tentet
The new album – to be released by Anzic Records on October 6, 2017 – ranges from vintage swing and ballads to Brazilian, Klezmer and African grooves
The Anat Cohen Tentet unveils music from Happy Song at Chicago’s Logan Center for the Arts on October 7 – as well as at tour dates across the country in 2017-18
“The lyric beauty of her tone, easy fluidity of her technique and extroverted manner of her delivery make this music accessible to all.” — Chicago Tribune on Anat Cohen
Anat Cohen – celebrated the world over for her expressive virtuosity and infectious charisma – has never been more prolific and inspired, onstage and on record. Since 2005, Anat’s series of releases via her Anzic Records label have seen the clarinetist/saxophonist range from hard-swinging to lilting balladry, from small groups to larger ensembles and back again, exploring a universe of music along the way. Anat’s latest release and third this year – Happy Song, to be released by Anzic on October 6, 2017 – sees her drawing on diverse musical loves, from Brazilian music to African grooves, from vintage swing to touching ballads. She also explores Klezmer for the first time on record, perhaps surprising for a musician raised in Tel Aviv and long resident in Brooklyn. The new vehicle for these explorations is the Anat Cohen Tentet, a group of ace New York musicians that made its debut at the Jazz Standard in Manhattan and the famed Newport Jazz Festival (with future tour dates listed below). Above all, Happy Song is another synergistic collaboration between Anat and co-producer/co-arranger Oded Lev-Ari, who is also her partner in Anzic as well as a kindred spirit since their high-school days in Israel. Anat has been declared Clarinetist of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association every year since 2007, and she has also been named the top clarinetist in both the readers and critics polls in DownBeat, the jazz bible, for multiple years running. The release of Happy Song – which features Anat on clarinet exclusively – comes in the 100th anniversary year of the very first jazz clarinet recording, by the Original Dixieland “Jass” Band.
In many ways, the new Happy Song carries on from an initial highpoint of her discography, 2007’s sumptuous Noir, which saw Anat weave her various horns through the all-star Anzic Orchestra, arranged and conducted by Lev-Ari. Billboard magazine marveled over the “cinematic feel” of Noir, with the Washington Post praising Lev-Ari’s arrangements as “wonderfully textured and evocative” and DownBeat extolling Anat’s solos for their “enviable lyricism” and a way with “pure melody that’s seldom seen.” The Tentet of Happy Song boasts a different sort of richness, one that’s full but also fleet and fizzing, with an open, jazzy energy. The beautiful arrangements are by both Anat and Lev-Ari, with the latter directing the band: Rubin Kodheli (cello), Nadje Noordhuis (trumpet & flugelhorn), Nick Finzer (trombone), Owen Broder (baritone sax & bass clarinet), James Shipp (vibraphone & percussion), Vitor Gonçalves (piano & accordion), Sheryl Bailey (guitar), Tal Mashiach (double-bass) and Anthony Pinciotti (drums), plus Anat on solo clarinet. After ensemble workshops at Shapeshifter Lab in Brooklyn, multiple nights of knockout performances at the Jazz Standard and the acclaimed showcase at the Newport Jazz Festival, Anat and Lev-Ari took the Tentet into Avatar Studios in Manhattan.
“The Tentet quickly developed a special chemistry,” Anat says, “and that chemistry is what determined the sound of the band – the mix of personalities, musically and socially. You never know what’s going to happen, but it was exciting the way everyone was creating new blends, agreeing to try things, venturing out with some group improvisation – we just let it happen, to see where it would take us. The band became what it wanted to be, and then the reaction in New York and Newport was overwhelmingly warm and enthusiastic. For me, it’s thrilling to play the clarinet over the mass of sound this ensemble produces. The musicians are so versatile and the group so dynamic, from soft and spacious to really rocking, where I can just wail over the top. I love that.”
With the Tentet, “the aim was to create the smallest, most flexible large ensemble we could,” Lev-Ari explains, “and I think the band really lets Anat be free in her playing and selection of repertoire – it’s an extraordinarily versatile band of musical omnivores, happy to go wherever the music takes them. The group’s balance between freedom and interactivity, individual expression and stylistic diversity – that mirrors Anat as a musician. Moreover, this band allows us to express our ideas about the inclusiveness, universality and openness of music, and how it should be a vehicle for connecting with listeners not just on the basis of genre and style, but on the basis of emotion and feeling.”
About her work with Lev-Ari from Noir to Happy Song, Anat says: “I’m in awe of Oded’s skills in so many fields of life. He’s so good at so much, just an amazingly talented person. More than that, he applies himself with such dedication and integrity, the best sort of musical partner.” Lev-Ari adds: “Anat is such an inspiring artist to work with, and our individual development as musicians and as humans has informed our collaborations over time. That has been a wonderful thing to experience.”
Happy Song begins with Anat’s solo clarinet lead-in to the soulful, groovy title track “Happy Song,” a standout Anat original that first appeared in trio guise on her album Luminosa of 2015, now arranged for the Tentet by its composer. Next is the lyrical “Valsa para Alice,” another Anat original; lushly orchestrated by Lev-Ari for the Tentet (with solo spots for Vitor Gonçalves on accordion and James Shipp on vibes), the song originally appeared on Alegria da Casa, Anat’s first album with Trio Brasileiro. “Oh Baby” is a big-band swinger associated with Benny Goodman, customized by Lev-Ari for the Tentet with plenty of space for exchanges between horns and a drum solo for Anthony Pinciotti. Lev-Ari put together the stirring, nearly 13-minute “Anat’s Doina” – a Doina being a three-part, fantasy-slow-fast form – to blend a traditional Klezmer tune with original melodies by the clarinetist, the medley evoking not only the land of their birth but also the jazz funeral music of New Orleans. The highly rhythmic “Loro” – composed by Egberto Gismonti (one of Anat’s favorite Brazilian musicians) – was arranged by Lev-Ari for the Tentet, complete with an added “party” section.
Lev-Ari composed “Trills and Thrills” especially for the Tentet, the piece building dramatically until Anat gets “to rock out” over Sheryl Bailey’s distorted guitar – the exciting performance captured in a single take. Lev-Ari included instrumental and vocal arrangements of Gordon Jenkins’ timelessly moving ballad “Goodbye” on Threading, his 2015 debut album as a leader. Anat, who also performed on Threading, asked him to tailor a version for the Tentet, “just because it’s such a beautiful song, one that I love to play – there are always new emotional possibilities to find in a melody that deep.” Happy Song closes with the irresistible rhythms of “Kenedougou Foly” by Malian balafon player Neba Solo (a/k/a Souleymane Traoré); arranged from the vocal original by Anat, the piece jumps via effervescent call-and-response between the horns and her ever-lyrical clarinet over that West African backbeat, with Shipp’s prepared-vibraphone mimicking the sound of the balafon.
Relating the broad scope of Happy Song to the centennial of the first jazz clarinet recording, Anat says: “The clarinet has been so culturally important around the world – not only in jazz but in Western classical music and the folk music of Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South America. With Happy Song, I wanted to touch upon that history of the instrument, its wide range of expressive relevance. But no matter whether we’re onstage or people get to hear the recording, I hope the music makes listeners happy, makes them want to dance and hug each other. That’s how it makes me feel.”
Anat Cohen
Earlier this year, Anat continued her love affair with Brazilian sounds by releasing two albums simultaneously via Anzic: Outra Coisa: The Music of Moacir Santos (with 7-guitarist Marcello Gonçalves) and Rosa Dos Ventos (with Trio Brasileiro), both recorded in Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia. Apropos of these, DownBeat declared: “One of the most acclaimed clarinetists in jazz, the Israel-born Cohen has also managed to become one of the world’s foremost practitioners of Brazilian music. Indeed, she is now to the clarinet what Stan Getz was to the tenor saxophone in the 1960s: a jazz musician who speaks the language so fluently that she has become a beacon of Brazilian music to the larger jazz world.” The praise hasn’t only come from the jazz world, with Brazilian Press saying: “Anat is an Israeli who seems like a Brazilian when she plays samba.”
Anat’s trio of releases in 2017 follows her previous album, Luminosa (2015). “The sound of Luminosa reflects my musical life in New York City,” she explained. “I flow between modern and traditional jazz, between samba and choro – all maybe in a week’s time. The title is Portuguese for luminous – something shining, especially in the dark. To me, music is a luminous experience. Whenever I’m immersed in it, life lights up for me, no matter what else is going on.” In a feature on Luminosa, NPR said: “Jazz musicians don’t get much more global than Anat Cohen.” Prior to that release came Claroscuro in 2012, another worldly collection that featured such guests as Paquito D’Rivera and Wycliffe Gordon – and garnered a four-and-a-half-star review in DownBeat. In 2009, Anat was the first Israeli to ever headline the hallowed Village Vanguard, a stand that yielded a quartet tribute to the Benny Goodman songbook in Clarinetwork: Live at the Village Vanguard (2010). Notes from the Village (2008) was a showcase for her multi-reed talents in quartet and quintet settings, and she released two albums in 2007, the orchestral Noir and string quartet-laced Poetica. Anat made her leader debut with the small-combo Place & Time (2005). Anat has also recorded four acclaimed albums as part of the 3 Cohens Sextet with her brothers, saxophonist Yuval and trumpeter Avishai: One (2003), Braid (2007), Family (2011) and Tightrope (2013), with their work together landing them on the cover of DownBeat.
All About Jazz aptly called Anat “one of a kind,” and she has won over the most knowing of jazz sages: Dan Morgenstern praised her “gutsy, swinging” style, Ira Gitler her “liquid dexterity and authentic feeling,” and Gary Giddins her musicality “that bristles with invention.” The late Nat Hentoff said: “Anat does what all authentic musicians do: She tells stories from her own experiences that are so deeply felt that they are very likely to connect listeners to their own dreams, desires and longings.”
ANAT COHEN TENTET — Happy Song
1. “Happy Song” (Anat Cohen)
2. “Valsa para Alice” (Anat Cohen, arranged Oded Lev-Ari)
3. “Oh, Baby” (Owen Murphy, arr. Mel Power, adapted Lev-Ari)
4. “Anat’s Doina”
– “A Maysé” (Anat Cohen)
– “Der Gasn Nigun” (traditional, arr. Lev-Ari)
– “Foile-Shtick” (Anat Cohen, arr. Lev-Ari)
5. “Loro” (Egberto Gismonti, arr. Lev-Ari)
6. “Trills and Thrills” (Oded Lev-Ari)
7. “Goodbye” (Gordon Jenkins, arr. Lev-Ari)
8. “Kenedougou Foly” (Neba Solo, arr. Cohen)
Produced by Anat Cohen & Oded Lev-Ari
Recorded mixed by Brian Montgomery; mastered by Mark Wilder
ANAT COHEN TENTET — Tour Dates
2017
October 7 –Chicago, IL @ Performance Hall at Logan Center for the Arts
November 4 – Decorah, IA @ Center for Faith & Life
November 30 – Northridge, CA @The Valley Performing Arts Center
December 3 – San Francisco, CA @ Miner Auditorium
December 4 – Olympia, WA @ South Puget Sound Community College
2018
March 10 – Cambridge, MA @ Sanders Theatre
April 7 – Kansas City, MO @ Gem Theater
April 8 – Columbia, MO @ Missouri Theatre
April 9 and 10 – Lebanon, IL @ Hettenhausen Center for the Arts
April 11 – Dayton, OH @ Sears Recital Hall
May 5 – Washington, DC @ Kennedy Center Terrace Theater
www.anatcohen.com www.odedlevari.com
www.anzicrecords.com
Press Enquiries on Anat Cohen & Anzic Records, contact:
Jason Paul Harman Byrne @ Red Cat Publicity – 646 259 2105;
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