Avishai Cohen
Interview with Avishai Cohen – Music without boundaries
The « Europe and culture » project, lead by students from Sciences Po Paris, held its last round table, « Crossed views on European culture – how do Europe and its neighbours influence each other ? », dedicated to the mutual cultural and artistic influences between Europe and its neighbours, on May 13th. In connection with this event he couldn’t attend directly, the Israeli musician Avishai Cohen shared deep thoughts with us about his life path, his conception of arts and his latest music projects. Enjoy this emotionally charged moment…Personal and artistic path
Could you tell us how it all began ?
It began when I was a child; I just found joy and freedom in music. As a kid, my imagination and my stimulation were fertilized by music. I guess that only music gave me the opportunity to express some feelings and this need to communicate certain things has become more important throughout time. I realized that music really became a language that I would use eventually in my life.
How important was music in your family and your education?
Music was truly important. My mother is an artistic person. She used to teach art and she sings for her own enjoyment at home. But she would play a lot of classical music and other types of music too, whether on the radio or just on records. I have always been influenced
by this. I’m the only musician in my family.
Have you been strongly influenced by your country and New York?
It’s hard to say where its mostly from. As far as music is concerned, I believe that it doesn’t matter where you are from. If you open yourself up to music, you will always feel good music. Music that sounds sincere and comes from a real place and that brings you a great life sensation. So it happened to be Israel. Then I went to New York and it was the jazz and the city’s influences. But any place can have the same effects by helping you to find the truth and also things that have substance.
…And you meet interesting people also.
You meet people of course and it happens later during tours when you discuss or make music with other people – then you really start to grow. But everything has an influence.
Could you tell us more about the period when you moved to New York?
I was 21, it was in 1991 when I moved there to pursue a career as a jazz bassist. I was always open to other things, so I got into Latin music, funk and reggae, and I soaked up a lot of things that were going on in New York, especially jazz : I went into the jazz scene and I started getting my confidence little by little as a bass player, in places where a lot of great musicians played, met a lot of people, and grew from that.
Did the Latin musicians you met especially have a real influence on your musicianship?
Yes, I was really attracted by salsa and also by Afro-Caribbean grooves and music. I was checking out a lot of that and I was learning with a teacher a little bit. I played with those guys and I developed a very strong connection to that music that shaped a lot of my bass playing as well as my musicianship as a writer too. It’s a very important element in my life.
And you recently got back to Israel, where you are now living.
Yes, I have been living there for the last few years now, after 12 years in New York I have been operating from there and going out to play all over the world. I enjoy being in Israel for many reasons and most of all because I am from there and I feel connected to the place and my family. For me, it is right to be there right now.
How is the music scene out there at the moment ?
There’s lots of talent. Since I went to New York in the middle of the nineties, a few other people paved the way for a lot of young musicians that go to New York today. There is already like a “thing” about Israeli musicians, so I feel very happy with the fact that something happened since I have been there ,and made a name for myself, and the fact that other Israeli musicians are more easily accepted today. Also, because of me and a lot of other people, the jazz scene in Israel has become much bigger and there is much more awareness. There are a lot of young movements that want to go to New York…a little too much sometimes in the sense that New York is seen as a place where anything is possible – and this has never has been the case. New York is actually not like a secret place where you go and then become a jazz musician. But indeed, there is much more awareness and there are various tools (thanks to Youtube, MySpace, etc.) that are easily accessible today that you don’t have to go too far to be in touch with the scene and to observe what is going on. For young people, it’s a big advantage to keep in touch with the scene wherever they are. It widens the scene and it makes it a bit more virtual. Nonetheless it’s a great, quick insight into the scene, into people’s minds and talent.
…as long as it still attracts people to concerts, of course.
Sure, there are great things about going to concerts, don’t get me wrong. I am just saying that to every development there is a regression of a certain kind. There is so much virtuality, there is so much “screen” that there is less of actual, you know, going somewhere, being part of a struggle and learning it through going to jazz clubs, rather than seeing it on screen, it is a different effect. But, all in all, it is a great thing that there is access to everybody.
Well, actually, thanks to our interest in your music, we discovered other artists from Israel such as Yael Deckelbaum or Idan Raichel, as well as artists singing in Ladino like Yasmin Levy.
The best thing about discovering one thing is that you discover another.
To what extent is the Israeli music scene inspired by other cultures – Tel Aviv for instance, which is reckoned to be a very international city in terms of cultural influences ?
Again, the influence is becoming more and more important within the media or by the quick access to different things. But Israel is and has always been culturally mixed with Moroccan, Turkish, Greek, Bulgarian, Eastern European cultures and also the influences of Jewish descending people coming from different places 30, 60 or even 70 years ago. The influences are seen on music, on language and on food. In that sense, it is a great thing, it is in the air, it doesn’t even have to appear on stage or on the radio. Different people absorb it in different ways. I feel very blessed in the way that I can consider myself an open person who absorbs anything that has a spiritual or just a real meaning. It could be anything, from anywhere, as long as there is real substance to it.
One undeniable quality of your music is that it brings people with different horizons. Is this special to France?
No, it is not. I have to say it is a magical and very valuable thing that I have noticed, for a few years, about the people that come to see my music. It unites people of different ages and that is a big compliment to me. It would be great to see just a thousand young people, but it wouldn’t be as strong as seeing within the 1,000 400 young people, 200 older people, and 300 infants. I am pleased to see kids and very old people, since I know that between both generations there are always all ages. Also, I enjoy seeing people that don’t usually connect to jazz, such as parents bringing their children or grand parents.
That is precisely the problem with what we call “jazz”. Many people have some prejudices against it. They say it is too expensive or that they don’t “understand” it.
I understand that a lot of people who hear the word « jazz » don’t associate themselves with it. It could be an experience that they had during which they just didn’t feel invited by jazz. As far as my music is concerned, everything makes sense: I just make music that makes me move and I’m very happy to see people having the same feeling. It’s the real magic of being an artist: someone who shares deep feelings and thoughts, and expresses himself while people follow him.
Your last album, « Aurora », was released a few months ago and appears as a turning point in your career, because you are mainly featured as a singer for the first time.
I’m not really featured as a singer like a pop record where it is totally focused on the singing. There’s a lot of instrumental and space still, but in comparison to what I have been doing until recently, it is completely different. The voice is very apparent, and I am seeking it. I thought that not sharing what I was doing at home wouldn’t have been honest to myself and the people who listen to my music. It was a big risk and I only realized that I am a risk taker afterwards. Although this state of mind has a great asset, the risk of losing people accustomed to my style on the last record. They either think they don’t like anymore or they are just conflicted by it, and it could be a critic or just a fan saying something. I’m noticing that because of the big shift I made but it is really interesting, you study people and things like that, you see how close-minded some people are and how insecurity comes to the plate.
But all in all, it is amazing how great it is still. When you do something that requires courage, you must do it with love by considering new reactions to the changes and the closeness – I think that I am getting closer to some people now as they feel closer to my world, to my voice and to my inner self. This fact is way more important than the reactions of disappointed people who are fewer than what I could imagine. But I never thought too much about it, as I just focused on what I had to do. In my view, « Aurora » is an open door to other things since it gives me the legitimacy to do anything I want without being afraid whether people would like it or not. I have never really played that game. Signing with Blue Note Records and putting out a record for them made me go for the most unexpected thing and it opened a new way for me. Nowadays, shows are different with the presence of vocals and also a rich platter. It makes me think differently by including improvisation,composition, voices and great musicians that I am very lucky to have…even the sky is not the limit and it is a great way to look at things. It’s like going to the sea and looking at all the depths, the fish and colours, and then to realize that there is no end. The more you open yourself to it, the richer the world becomes and your inspiration has no limits. This is very important to me because anything that has an end means death to me, in terms of creation and imagination.
Another interesting element in this album is the language…
Sure, I just express myself in all the languages that I love and have some closeness to : English is almost like my first language, and singing in English is kind of stimulating because it sounds a certain way when you sing it ; Hebrew is my first language, I think I love singing in it the most. And then Spanish, I love Spanish for the music and the different connotations, and I feel very close to that Spanish song I sing, Alfonsina y el Mar, on which I brought my own interpretation to the text – only for that “Aurora” is brilliant, because I think I brought something fresh to that song that has been covered for years and years in the Latin world. It was a very big step for me. I felt very comfortable with my rendition on the bass though, and it gives it that special thing. Ladino is a language that I have mostly learned through my mother, she sings some ladino songs and it is part of the musical landscape of Israel and of Jewish tradition. Some of those melodies I find the most storytelling, like most melodic marvellously carved
Morenika for instance…
Morenika is a song that everybody knows in Israel, especially the older generation. I guess it was taken from an old Bible text which inspired that song. I don’t know any melody that strong, I was very happy to find a way to sing where it sounds original, it sounds like it is coming from my world. It is not just covering the song as is , but staying very loyal to the basic ingredients of the song and the composition, which is so strong that it sounds like people wrote it together, not one person. Now I sing it, but in my previous records I completed many arrangements for songs that are like Morenika, however solely instrumental. So I have been matured and stimulated by folkloric sounds for a long time.
It seems to me that words and lyrics have a heightened emotional charge when you don’t understand their meaning.
It’s great! It’s like when I listened to the Beatles when I was a kid, I used to mimic the words, I didn’t even know what they meant, or not all of them. I even enjoy it a little more in that sense because I am totally into the sound of the music. To be honest, words have such meaning, a word is a world, but I see a word as a sound as much as a meaning. I have all the rights to see that, I don’t care if someone tells me “it means this”. To me, it means this or this is just a sound. And, people think about it, like writers, poets, have different ways of thinking or sometimes they are so strict about the meaning of words. Feeling close to nature and life is very dynamic. I think that you can never be too precise with something, I think, because then you lose the meaning of it. The meaning of strong things is that it has more than just one meaning. The best artists, the strongest artists – not only in music – are the ones who give more importance to imagination because it is very boring to know that this is just a tape there [Avishai points at the tape recorder we are using for the interview]. But when you make it different then it looks, and it becomes art.
This is precisely the purpose of our project “Europe and culture” at Sciences Po Paris: we are trying to share with people another insight into “Europe” than the mere political one that currently fails to attract them. We chose to highlight Europe through arts.
Politics can sometimes be frustrating. But you are right, to me, art is the best way of looking at what is going on around us in a new light.
By Julie Diebolt, with the help of Cécile Parriat
(16th October 2009)
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