Avishai Cohen Trio Gently Disturbed
Being another hotshot bassist alumnus of Chick Corea-led bands, it's tempting to call Avishai Cohen the "new" Stanley Clarke, but that's a lazy comparison. Cohen can effortlessly flutter up and down those thick strings just as ably as Clarke, but his approach is fundamentally different. Having also been trained as an accomplished pianist, Cohen plays his stand-up with more of a piano voicing and he is born to interplay with that chordal instrument.

It makes sense, then, that this album of him leading a piano-bass-drums trio is going to be well suited for Cohen, and it is exactly that. The best thing about this record is that the talent on hand is well deployed without turning this into a wankfest. Cohen, who wrote or co-wrote nine of the eleven tracks, took special care to make sure the songs have melodic lift to them and along with 21-year-old Israeli pianist Shai Maestro and longtime drummer Mark Guiliana, wove their improvisions into the tunes more than on top of them. So, a song like "Seattle" lightly waltzes with pleasant lines so much so that the careful group interplay enters the conscious only subtly. "Chuzpan" employs Corea-esque shifting time signatures but the folk-like melody flows in an almost classical sense. Songs such as "The Ever Evolving Etude" and "Variations in G Minor" even more strongly suggests classical influences while maintaining some of the looseness of jazz.

While Maestro shows plenty of capability to handle Cohen's intricate compositions and Guiliana seems to anticipate every slight mood change, it's still Cohen's show. He shows total mastery as part of the tight unit as well as with his thoughtful solos.

Brad Mehldau may have defined the art of the trio for the 21st century from a pianist's point of view. With his new trio, Cohen is making a case for a modern jazz trio more from the bassist's perspective. Best of all, he does it without diminishing the role of the piano. Gently Disturbed, set for general release May 20 on Cohen's own Razdaz Records, is where Cohen rests his case.

"Quickies" are mini-record reviews of new or upcoming releases, or "new to me." Some albums are just that much more fun to listen to than to write about.