Jazz Trumpeter Avishai Cohen Talks Practice (mp3)
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Jazz trumpeter Avishai Cohen first came to my attention when Chad McCullough spoke with me about practice several months ago. I promptly checked him out and was psyched to discover a new favorite jazz trumpet player. He’s one of the most interesting players I’ve heard in a while; definitely check out his albums Triveni and After the Big Rain especially the track Parto Forte (also check out The Trumpet Player).
Avishai and Chad are two of the musicians I interviewed for my next book The Practice of Practice. The Kickstarter campaign for the book is LIVE, through April 11, 2014. Get the book at a reduced price and help to bring it into the world. Learn more here.
When I spoke with him, Avishai was in Chicago playing with his long-time friend, NY singer-songwriter Keren Ann (here’s a clip of them at a Tel Aviv show–Avishai plays and sings). Avishai agreed to hang out and chat about his take on practice. We went for sushi before the show, and I was so caught up in the hang that I neglected to turn on the recording for a while. Before I did, Avishai talked about the gig he’d done the night before at the Playboy Jazz Fest to a huge crowd, and we marveled at the weirdness of ass implants, the mastery of Eddie Palmieri, and a lot of other interesting stuff.
The quality of the recording isnt’ the greatest, and you might hear some sushi-related Japanese spoken in the background. Hope you enjoy.
As always, links to interesting/useful stuff we talked about can be found below.
- The Four Hour Work Week, by Tim Ferris
- Laurie Frink, trumpeter, master teacher
- Clinical Notes on Trumpet Playing, by Roger Ingram
- check out the NPR interview w/ Roger Ingram talking about being a sideman.
- Greg Gisbert (here’s a solo from him on Wind Machine with the Buddy Rich big band, solo starts @ 1:40)
- check out Round and Round on Greg’s MySpace page. Wooo!
- and GG’s recordings on Criss Cross Records
- Downbeat interview with Herbie Hancock
- Downbeat’s The Great Jazz Interviews
- Christian McBride (music)
- Ornette Coleman (music)
- Avishai is on tour in Europe with the group Tea for Three (with Dave Douglas and Enrico Rava)
Essential Trumpet Lessons 
G’day, would you be able to get the link cranking again please? I’m keen as to listen to it but it won’t open. Ta, Patrick
Thanks for the note, Patrick. Sorry about that. I recently updated my website to a more mobile-friendly platform and some files didn’t make the transfer. I’ll get right on this and it’ll be up and available by the end of the day. Thanks for letting me know! —-Jon
Hey is the link working? i would really like to listen to it!!!
yes it’s working. There were/are two links. The one at the very top was corrected long ago, but I didn’t realize there was one in the body of the blog, too. That one’s working now, too. Sorry for the confusion!
i stay in south africa, who is marketing and distributing this album. i will like to order it. please help.
Thanks for writing! The best way to get this great album if you’re in S. Africa is to get the mp3 album. You can find that here.
G’day, would you be able to get the link cranking again please? I’m keen as to listen to it but it won’t open. Ta, Patrick
Thanks Jonathan, I can’t wait to listen to this when I get home!!!!
Thank you for this article! Had the pleasure of seeing Avishai twice in feb and was really enjoyed him.
thanks for the comment. I’d love to hear him in a straight-ahead setting. The playing he did with Keren Ann was atmospheric, interesting and good (a couple pedal effects, etc.) and entirely unexpected.