Avishai Cohen's
After the Big Rain is an ambitious, earthy and endlessly surprising work that finds the trumpeter/composer melding post-bop, avant-garde jazz, African folk music and electric soundscapes. Having been a force on the downtown NYC jazz scene since the '90s,
Cohen has made a name for himself as an adventurous, forward-thinking musician performing in various ensembles that mixed everything from klezmer and free jazz to swinging hard bop and post-rock. Here,
Cohen takes his world music inclinations one step further partnering with West African vocalist/guitarist
Lionel Loueke on a series of loosely connected pieces that strongly feature
Loueke's moody singing and percussive guitar. Interestingly, the album often sounds more like African folk music than jazz with
Loueke setting a song up and then
Cohen with his muted/electronically enhanced trumpet and keyboardist
Jason Lindner's wave-like Fender Rhoades joining in organically after a few bars.
Cohen himself is a fire brand of an improviser who evinces both a
Miles Davis-like sense of harmonic color and a knack for muscular, knotty
Woody Shaw-inspired improvisational lines. Here, he mixes both styles liberally, often bumping against
Yosvany Terry's rhythmic "jack-in-the-box" sounding chereke playing. In many ways,
After the Big Rain harkens back to trumpeter
Don Cherry's stellar 1975 jazz/world fusion album
Brown Rice and in a similar sense is a moving and enveloping early masterwork. ~ Matt Collar