By Michael Ullman
To this listener, the quartet generates a drama of gradual enlightenment, as if extroversion signified some sort of illumination.
Avishai Cohen, Naked Truth (ECM)
Naked Truth is a somber, meditative piece broken up into eight parts and ending with a ninth, a kind of coda in which trumpeter and leader Avishai Cohen reads (in English translation) “Departure,” a poem by the late Israeli poet Zelda Schneurson Mishkovsky. In her poem, Mischkovsky dramatizes the act of dying as a series of departures, beginning with “the departure from the splendour of the skies and the colours of earth.” Recorded in September 2021 in a town in Provence called Pernes-les-Fontaines (it’s near Avignon), the suite is played by Cohen with pianist Yonathan Avishai, bassist Barak Mori, and drummer Ziv Ravitz.
The suite begins with a three-note phrase deep in the string bass. Cohen enters with long tones that are held via a slowly wavering vibrato. The duet ends abruptly a little before two minutes are gone: Part 1 serves as a quiet, elegantly melodic intro to the more substantial Part 2, which seems to be built around a four-note pattern obsessively repeated by the pianist, with (eventually) predictable shifts of pitch along with rises and falls in intensity. The pianist is soon joined by the drummer on tom toms and occasional swishes of cymbal, deep in the background. Then the bass reinforces the basic pitches before Cohen enters, muted, playing held notes and eventually a pretty, yearning melody. He goes high at times, but never becomes strident: it’s as if he doesn’t want to break the spell, even when challenged by the pianist, who thickens the textures, complicates the harmony, and increases the volume of his accompaniment.
To this listener, the quartet generates a drama of gradual enlightenment, as if extroversion signified some sort of illumination. The early parts seem to dole out flickers of development, an impression left by a slight crescendo in the background as well as brief ventures into the high ranges of the trumpet. Towards the end of Part 2 the bassist bows for a couple of seconds and it feels like an event. Part 3 is played, muted, by Cohen, whose reticent sound is almost drowned out by figures from the piano figures, which are played quickly. Eventually, the piano takes over and then a surprising thing happens: Cohen removes his mute and reasserts himself. The beginning of Part 4 is given over to the drummer Ziv Ravitz on tom toms and cymbals: it’s as if a snare would be too vulgar or extroverted for music this meditative. Cohen enters with a brief phrase and the piece becomes a thoughtful duet between trumpet and percussion, with plenty of space between Cohen’s intrusions. Halfway through this seven-minute section, bassist Barak Mori replaces the drummer, who rejoins the proceedings. At this point the quartet is playing at the same time; there are some sudden moves, a sharply hit chord on the piano, a single bash on cymbals, and a group crescendo that leads to an increase in tempo that threatens the suite’s concentrated, thoughtful air.
Part 5 begins with a piano solo that supplies a new kind of lyricism created by his rolled chords and gently falling phrases. There is a feature of his work here that is hard to describe: call it peacefully dynamic lyricism. Part 6 is a short piece for the drummer who plays on tom toms, mostly against the deep sound of his bass. It leads without pause to Part 7, in which the piano states a new melody. Part 8 continues with a different take on that melody, an interpretation that provides the most agitated playing of the set. Departure is the only individually titled movement: its reading of the Mishkovsky poem seems to be the raison d’être for the sobriety of the album, as well as its sense of dignity. The poem addresses withdrawing from this life, its beauties (“all that is pleasing to the eye”) and its quandaries (“Knowing-Good-And-Evil). It is about a desire to somehow escape what has happened as well as what has been dreamt, created, found, and thought. There’s a sudden shock in the accompanying music near the end — an abrupt silence. Obviously, one of the things that we must depart from is music. The poem is a description of what is beautiful in our lives and what is distressing, including what Cohen reads — this final naked truth — with only silence behind him: “And before the end, to live with the fear of their death, and the certainty of my own.” Naked Truth is a beautifully executed meditation on the last things.
Michael Ullman studied classical clarinet and was educated at Harvard, the University of Chicago, and the U. of Michigan, from which he received a PhD in English. The author or co-author of two books on jazz, he has written on jazz and classical music for the Atlantic Monthly, New Republic, High Fidelity, Stereophile, Boston Phoenix, Boston Globe, and other venues. His articles on Dickens, Joyce, Kipling, and others have appeared in academic journals. For over 20 years, he has written a bi-monthly jazz column for Fanfare Magazine, for which he also reviews classical music. At Tufts University, he teaches mostly modernist writers in the English Department and jazz and blues history in the Music Department. He plays piano badly.
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