OCT 24–27 | ECM 50th Anniversary
Oct 25, 2019
Miner Auditorium
PLEASE NOTE:
This page is an archive of a past production
Please visit our calendar for all upcoming SFJAZZ shows.
Original show description below.
Trumpeters have defined jazz’s vanguard since the music emerged more than a century ago from New Orleans, and this double bill features two horn players who are extending that proud legacy.
The supremely inventive Israeli trumpeter Avishai Cohen, a familiar Bay Area presence from his six-year stint in the SFJAZZ Collective, focuses on new material and music from his recent quartet releases for ECM, 2016’s Into The Silence and Cross My Palm With Silver from 2017. The Tel Aviv native is a four-time DownBeat Critics Poll winner and an artist of rare range and clarion tone who has excelled through work as a bandleader with his trio Triveni, as part of the world-fusion collective Third World Love, in sideman settings with Jason Lindner, Mark Turner, and Omer Avital, and as part of the band 3 Cohens with his jazz-playing siblings Anat and Yuval.
A lion of the avant-garde since his membership in Chicago’s AACM in the late 1960s, Wadada Leo Smith is in the midst of a spectacular late career creative burst. Over the past decade the 2016 Doris Duke Artist Award-winner released nearly two dozen albums, including a series of ambitious projects, most notably 2012’s epic Pulitzer Prize finalist Ten Freedom Summers (Cuneiform), an orchestral four-disc project inspired by the civil rights movement. For his return to SFJAZZ he presents the world premiere of Appassionata, a multi-movement work focusing on Anita Hill, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Lorraine Hansberry, Pablo Casals, and the Falling Man (and Woman) of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Andrew Gilbert: ECM and the Silence in the Sound
Many say Cohen has assumed the spirit of the great Miles Davis, reincarnated into a powerful combination of lyricism and intellect. He is among the best in the world.
LA Weekly on Avishai Cohen
Many say Cohen has assumed the spirit of the great Miles Davis, reincarnated into a powerful combination of lyricism and intellect. He is among the best in the world.
LA Weekly on Avishai Cohen
Personnel
AVISHAI COHEN QUARTET
Avishai Cohen trumpet
Yonathan Avishai piano
Barak Mori bass
Ziv Ravitz drums
WADADA LEO SMITH QUARTET
Wadada Leo Smith trumpet
Ashley Walters cello
Erika Dohi piano
Pheeroan akLaff drums
Every recording Smith releases feels apt to be called a “landmark.” It’s the awe-inspiring, wide-screen breadth of his trumpet sound, the slowly accruing power of his compositions, and his way of making even small ensembles sound spacious — and ancient.
The New York Times on Wadada Leo Smith
Personnel
AVISHAI COHEN QUARTET
Avishai Cohen trumpet
Yonathan Avishai piano
Barak Mori bass
Ziv Ravitz drums
WADADA LEO SMITH QUARTET
Wadada Leo Smith trumpet
Ashley Walters cello
Erika Dohi piano
Pheeroan akLaff drums
Every recording Smith releases feels apt to be called a “landmark.” It’s the awe-inspiring, wide-screen breadth of his trumpet sound, the slowly accruing power of his compositions, and his way of making even small ensembles sound spacious — and ancient.
The New York Times on Wadada Leo Smith
Watch & Listen
Avishai Cohen
340 Down
Wadada Leo Smith Golden Quintet
Caravan of Winter
Avishai Cohen
340 Down
Wadada Leo Smith Golden Quintet
Caravan of Winter
OCT 24–27 | ECM 50TH ANNIVERSARY
OCT 24
OCT 24
Israeli Piano Virtuoso
SHAI MAESTRO TRIOOCT 25
Solo Bass
LARRY GRENADIEROCT 26
State Of The Art
VIJAY IYER TRIOOCT 26
Time Being
PETER ERSKINEOCT 27
Brazilian Jazz Giant
EGBERTO GISMONTIOCT 27
Trumpeter And Composer
RALPH ALESSI’S THIS AGAINST THAT