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Ashes to Gold
Ashes to Gold in Bloomington, MN
Current price: $19.99
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Size: CD
Trumpeter
Avishai Cohen
embodies the emotions of living through war, moving from anger to anguish, and finally hope, on his sixth
ECM
album, 2024's
Ashes to Gold
. The album, which features a five-part suite, was recorded in November 2023, but largely composed a month before in the wake of the cataclysmic events of October 7th and Israel's conflict with Hamas. While the Israeli-born jazz artist initially thought he was too emotionally overwrought to play or write anything, he quickly realized his need to put his feelings into music. The result is a musical rumination on the tragedy of war and the hope that humanity may yet find peaceful resolutions to such conflicts (at a 2024 Netherlands concert,
Cohen
purportedly dedicated his new suite to an immediate ceasefire). Helping
bring his cathartic music to life is his acoustic quartet featuring pianist
Yonathan Avishai
, bassist
Barak Mori
, and drummer
Ziv Ravitz
. This is the same group that appeared on his equally introspective 2022 album
Naked Truth
. However, where that album was a fully improvised recording,
is a thoughtfully composed chamber suite, one that balances a classical lyricism with moments of boldly searching improvisation. With his burnished, vocal-like trumpet tone,
plays with the focused intensity of an opera singer; soaring with anger on the opening piece, before collapsing into sorrowful moans and coos as the suite progresses. Interestingly, he also plays flute here, his delicate tone adding a dreamlike sweetness that contrasts with the more turbulent passages. There's a painterly impressionism to
's work, evoking both the modal style of
Miles Davis
and the classical modernism of composers like
Claude Debussy
and
Arnold Schoenberg
. Underscoring the classical influences at play on the album is
's latter-album reading of
Maurice Ravel
's "Adagio Assai" from the composer's "Concerto in G Major." Here, he strikes a virtuosic creative balance, reverently playing the melody, while also improvising upon it, his warm trumpet tumbling against
Yonathan
's angular piano lines. Finally, he ends the album with "The Seventh," a folk-like lullaby composed by his teenage daughter that feels like a hushed sigh, both sad and hopeful; a perfect encapsulation of the emotional journey
takes you on with
. ~ Matt Collar
Avishai Cohen
embodies the emotions of living through war, moving from anger to anguish, and finally hope, on his sixth
ECM
album, 2024's
Ashes to Gold
. The album, which features a five-part suite, was recorded in November 2023, but largely composed a month before in the wake of the cataclysmic events of October 7th and Israel's conflict with Hamas. While the Israeli-born jazz artist initially thought he was too emotionally overwrought to play or write anything, he quickly realized his need to put his feelings into music. The result is a musical rumination on the tragedy of war and the hope that humanity may yet find peaceful resolutions to such conflicts (at a 2024 Netherlands concert,
Cohen
purportedly dedicated his new suite to an immediate ceasefire). Helping
bring his cathartic music to life is his acoustic quartet featuring pianist
Yonathan Avishai
, bassist
Barak Mori
, and drummer
Ziv Ravitz
. This is the same group that appeared on his equally introspective 2022 album
Naked Truth
. However, where that album was a fully improvised recording,
is a thoughtfully composed chamber suite, one that balances a classical lyricism with moments of boldly searching improvisation. With his burnished, vocal-like trumpet tone,
plays with the focused intensity of an opera singer; soaring with anger on the opening piece, before collapsing into sorrowful moans and coos as the suite progresses. Interestingly, he also plays flute here, his delicate tone adding a dreamlike sweetness that contrasts with the more turbulent passages. There's a painterly impressionism to
's work, evoking both the modal style of
Miles Davis
and the classical modernism of composers like
Claude Debussy
and
Arnold Schoenberg
. Underscoring the classical influences at play on the album is
's latter-album reading of
Maurice Ravel
's "Adagio Assai" from the composer's "Concerto in G Major." Here, he strikes a virtuosic creative balance, reverently playing the melody, while also improvising upon it, his warm trumpet tumbling against
Yonathan
's angular piano lines. Finally, he ends the album with "The Seventh," a folk-like lullaby composed by his teenage daughter that feels like a hushed sigh, both sad and hopeful; a perfect encapsulation of the emotional journey
takes you on with
. ~ Matt Collar
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