Cuban Icon Omara Portuondo of Buena Vista Social Club™ Celebrates Her 85th Birthday!

Cuban Icon Omara Portuondo of Buena Vista Social Club™ Celebrates Her 85th Birthday with Special Guests Roberto Fonseca, Anat Cohen, and Regina Carter Announce Select U.S. Cities for Fall Tour.

What is the best way to celebrate Omara's 85th anniversayry and 70 years of performing professionally? A musical party with Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca, clarinetist/saxophonist, Anat Cohen and violinist Regina Carter throughout America's greatest concert halls.

The great Cuban diva and artistic ambassador of her country wants to celebrate with a grand fiesta which represents the impressive sweep of her career – on every stop meeting with old friends and new to perform together much loved Cuban classics from ‘Besame Mucho’ to ‘Veinte Años.’  The tour will reflect the long journey of her stellar career, taking the listener back to her younger years and her continuing love of elegant cabaret, from the Buena Vista days up to the present with different tastes and flavours, of what will be a musical feast, full of piquant sabrosura.

Joined by the amazing gifted Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca, clarinetist/saxophonist Anat Cohen and violinist Regina Carter, the artists will perform timeless Cuban classics as well as songs from their own repertoire.

Since the beginning of his musical career in the early 1990s, Cuban-born multi-instrumentalist Roberto Fonseca has stated his mission clearly: “I want my music to reach people who don’t know me, and I dream of one day becoming a point of reference for my audience.” Although still very young – by the standards of jazz, hip-hop, world music or any other genre – Fonseca has maintained a sharp focus on his mission that has already garnered him global recognition.

Anat Cohen has taken the jazz world by storm, winning hearts and minds the world over with her expressive virtuosity and delightful stage presence. An established bandleader and prolific composer, Cohen’s music is a unique blend of modern and traditional jazz, classical music, Brazilian choro, Argentine tango, and an expansive timeline of Afro-Cuban styles.

Regina Carter is the foremost jazz violinist of her generation. Her quest for beauty combined with her passion for excellence did not escape the attention of the MacArthur Foundation, who awarded Regina their prestigious fellowship “genius grant.”

Through their deep traditions and stunning musical personalities 2016 will bring us the 85 Tour.

The curtains of an era are slowly,  and elegantly coming down, but Omara will forever, as the old showbusiness adage has it “Always leave them wanting more.”

Epoch Times Features The Cohens

“I could easily write a book about Israeli jazz musicians or at least a chapter on The Three Cohens, two brothers and a sister from Tel Aviv, who have achieved stardom together and separately.

Anat Cohen has been leading Downbeat polls as the top clarinet player for years, and she is also a powerful sax player. Her latest album, “Luminosa,” is focused on Brazilian music. (The Brazilian Press hailed her as “an Israeli who seems like a Brazilian when she plays samba.”)

Trumpeter Avishai Cohen, Anat’s brother, has just released his first album on the ECM label, “Into the Silence.” This is a haunting CD in which Avishai’s muted trumpet expresses the pain of loss. The album is a jazz instrumental requiem for his father. He wrote most of the tunes in the six months after his father’s death.”

To read the full article click here

Anat Cohen Explains Why Jazz Clarinet Doesn't Get the Respect It Deserves

“‘What a lot of people associate it with is squeaking,’ she said with a laugh. ‘We still have to overcome the notion that clarinet squeaks.

‘People need to remember what a beautiful instrument it is, including in popular music,’ she added.

Back in the 1930s and 40s, clarinetists such as the “King of Swing” Benny Goodman made the instrument the star of dance bands until swing music fell from favor after World War II.

‘People stopped hearing it on the radio and in popular music,’ Cohen said.

Anat Cohen, who appears tonight at St. Cecilia Music Center, is proud to be a clarinetist just the same.”

To the read the full article click here

KPLU: "Anat Cohen — Flat-Out Brilliant"

 

Clarinetist (and sometime saxophonist) Anat Cohen is a one-woman music-blender.  Born and raised in Tel Aviv and now living in New York, Anat lays out a world of influences in almost every song she plays.  Jazz, classical, klezmer, tango, Brazilian — whatever style or genre of music you can think of, you’ll hear at least echoes of it in Ms. Cohen’s music if you listen long enough.  (And by "long enough" we mean, like, an evening’s performance from her and her band.)

To read the full article, see more video and listen to audio of the full set click here

The River 100.5 Features Anat Cohen - Live at St. Cecelia

"Featured on more than 21 albums, Cohen released her seventh record as a bandleader earlier this year on her label Anzic Records entitled Luminosa. Luminosa features Cohen playing singing/dancing originals, Brazilian classics by the likes of Milton Nascimento, and even re-imagining electronica as acoustica with an ingenious arrangement of a Flying Lotus tune. Luminosa showcases Cohen’s world beat influences spanning from Afro-Cuban, Argentinean, Klezmer, contemporary Brazilian music and classic Brazilian choro.
Voted Clarinetist of the Year for 8 years in a row by the Jazz Journalists Association, Cohen has also topped both the Critics and Readers Polls in the clarinet category in DownBeat magazine every year since 2011. Cohen has headlined at the legendary jazz venue the Village Vanguard and performed at every major Jazz Festival in the U.S. including Newport, Umbria, San Francisco and North Sea Jazz Festivals. In 2014 she served as the Music Director for the “Newport Jazz Festival Now 60! All-Star Band Tour.”"

To read the full article click here

SFJAZZ Presents "Sacred Space: Celebrating the Clarinet"

“On November 12, SFJAZZ presented a performance as a part of its long-standing series at Grace Cathedral, on top of Nob Hill in San Francisco. This series of performances, in co-operation with the cathedral staff, offers musicians a unique opportunity to present music of an especially creative kind. The music is linked to the Cathedral, which is a gigantic building with terrifically high ceilings. It is a giant stone chamber with deep and unpredictable resonance. Not even the latest recording technology could possibly recreate sounds like this, changing as the musicians change their own positions. Yet many recordings have been done inside the structure, listed on the cathedral web site. The most famous jazz concert in the cathedral was by Duke Ellington, who performed his “Sacred Concert” on September 16, 1965. There is a recording of this event, still available. More recently, in September 2015, SFJAZZcelebrated the 50th anniversary of the original Ellington concert with a new version scored and directed by alto saxophonist Miguel Zenon (see review here). SFJAZZ had previously celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Ellington show as well.”

To read the full article click here

Chicago Tribune Features Anat Cohen

““This year we decided to celebrate women in jazz with three red hot concerts — Anat Cohen, Tammy McCann and Dee Dee Bridgewater,” said President and CEO Mark George. “As long as jazz has existed, there was tremendous amounts of discrimination against female jazz players. But in the present day, great female jazz musicians have been born. We want to acknowledge that struggle but also celebrate the present because there are so many amazing musicians now who happen to be women.”

First up at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 19 is Anat Cohen with her Quartet. The Israeli clarinetist and tenor sax player was voted Clarinetist of the Year by the Jazz Journalist Association for eight consecutive years. “She’s very charismatic,” George said. “She has an open mind to all kinds of musical influences.”“

To read the full article click here

Mercury News Features Anat Cohen - Live at Grace Cathedral

"It’s always a privilege to get to hear world-class music played at Grace Cathedral, the incredibly beautiful church perched high atop Nob Hill in San Francisco. Experience it for yourself when SFJazz presents Sacred Space: Celebrating the Clarinet at the cathedral on Nov. 13. The concert features four of the best reed players on the planet — clarinet specialists Anat Cohen and Don Byron, bass clarinet great Todd Marcus and World Saxophone Quartet founder David Murray. With a cast like that — and a venue like Grace Cathedral — this should be a night to remember."

To read the full article, click here

Columbia Spectator Interviews Anat Cohen

“Few musicians capture the global essence of jazz like Anat Cohen.

After moving from Tel Aviv, Israel to Boston, Mass. to study at Berklee College of Music, clarinetist Anat Cohen developed an ear and a fluency in Afro-Latin music, which she will showcase this Saturday, Nov. 7 at Miller Theatre in a concert titled “Celebrando Brasil.” Cohen will be performing with her quartet, which features pianist Jason Lindner, bassist Tal Mashiach, and drummer Daniel Freedman, and she will also be joined onstage by various special guests.

Spectator had a chance to speak with Cohen ahead of “Celebrando Brasil” on topics ranging from her recent album “Luminosa,” which features Brazilian jazz guitarist Romero Lubambo and a Flying Lotus cover, to her transition into becoming a musician in the U.S.”

To read the full interview click here

KPLU Features Anat Cohen

“Clarinetist Anat Cohen’s transcendent appearances with the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra last February are still resonating. ‘I loved the trip to Seattle, loved meeting all the people there, theSRJO and other musicians. It was great time, and a wonderful hang,’ she said. ‘Everybody there is so nice.’ Her latest CD, ‘Luminosa’ features a number of beautiful Brazilian melodies.”

To read the full article click here

JazzTimes Reviews 3 Cohens at South Africa's Standard Bank Joy of Jazz Festival

“Moving from the disappointing to the sublime, the Cohen clan—tenor saxophonist and clarinetist Anat, soprano saxophonist Yuval and trumpeter Avishai, teamed with pianist Yonathan Avishai, bassist Matt Penman and drummer Ulysses Owens Jr.—shaped the tightest, smartest, most satisfying set of the entire festival. Highlights: a dark, sensuous slither through Ellington’s “The Mooch”; the becalmed majesty of Anat’s clarinet, roiled by a stormy Yuval solo on Fred Hersch’s “Song Without Words”; the siblings’ delightful union on the meandering “A Capella”; a trio of sparkling Yuval gems—his playful, frisky “Blues for Dandi’s Orange Bull Chasing an Orange Sack” (for his young daughter, in attendance in the front row), wildly uplifting “Freedom” and warm, gentle “Family”; and, to close, a bright, spirited “Tiger Rag.” As charming and funny as they were dynamic, the Cohens were also the only festival act to make a point of meeting and greeting audience members after the performance, offering to sign CDs and pose for photos.”

To read the full article click here