Recently my wife and I attended a concert by an up and coming jazz group, featuring Anat Cohen (clarinet and tenor sax) and her brother, Avishai on trumpet. These are fine musicians from Isreal, now living in New York, and they’ve received great accolades, and deservedly so.
Their playing is heartfelt and powerful, with amazing technique. Anat is a composer and arranger, and her tunes are really interesting, with strong melodies. Unfortunately, the structure of the arrangements was the same every time, and that structure didn’t work for me.
Every song had basically the same format. The melody would be stated, with nice interplay between the two horns and great support from the rhythm section. I really liked the use of unusual time signatures, and the way the melodies often floated and moved among the rhythm. But, immediately after the melody had been stated, the solo section would commence. The solos went in a completely different direction then the melody. There was no continuity between the melody and the solos. While the solos were well executed from a technical standpoint, they didn’t even seem to be part of the same composition. They usually went on to build up to a very loud and sometimes discordant peak.
After the solos, the following statement would often not be a recapitulation of the original melody, but a new theme. The new theme did not seem to me to be connected to either the melody or the solos.
My point is that the music was the type of jazz that many folks think of when they say they don’t like jazz. I would prefer to hear melodies, solos and thematic development that are all related to the point of the tune. I understand the desire to do something new and interesting and to test the boundaries. I respect that. But each tune, to me, still needs to make a coherent composition. Listen to any Gerry Mulligan composition, or Benny Golson, or Dave Brubeck, or Duke Ellington, or even John Coltrane, or countless others, and you’ll see what I mean. The solos should extend, explore, and take the harmony and melody in a different direction, but still be part of the same work, not a completely unrelated compositional world.
What do you think?
