Search - Avishai Cohen: As Is...Live at the Blue Note on DVD

Really good

Keith Maxwell Button | Columbus, OH | 04/27/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a great band with cool tunes and it's well captured. The bass is mixed a little too heavy but that's gonna happen when it's the bass players band. Avishai's sound is different and unique. If you like it, this is a great representation of his live show."

This music is downright scary!

gk | 10/16/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"'Scary' is a word that musicians use to compliment someone who is unbelievably good.
As a musician, I find this DVD both wonderful and unsettling - these guys are scary!

In contrast, Stanley Clarke was scary too, but in a much gentler, seductive way: like a siren's song, Clarke made me fall in love with the bass and spend almost 40 years now, trying to rise to his level (it ain't happening and never will - but that's ok).

Avishai Cohen is probably as great a musician as Stanley Clarke, Eddie Gomez or other bassists that you could mention, but he is also a very mature composer - far beyond Stanley Clarke, for example, on this level. I find Avishai Cohen 'scary' because his music is so relentlessly passionate - the rhythmic syncopation and odd time signatures leave me feeling like I'm always sitting on the edge of my seat, or on the edge of a cliff, marvelling at the beautiful scenery of the ocean crashing on the rocks below at the same time I feel worried about falling. Perhaps it is a bit like Sufi music or Gnawa music because it has that hypnotic effect.

This music is a bit like the moth and the flame.

Perhaps non-musicians will be able to simply enjoy it. I give it 5 stars not so much because I enjoy listening to it as much as 'easier' music, but because I believe that Avishai Cohen's music is a powerful force to be reckoned with that, I hope, will nourish me for many years as my sensibilities increase.



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Avishai live

Simfumene Susani | South Africa | 08/14/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I had a privilege of watching the Avishai trio when they performed live in South Africa in 2006. His passion and skill on the base was quite an experience. So I decided to look for his live DVD recordings on Amazon. This recording is, to my opinion, a mixed performance. I am not happy with the "rock 'n roll" feel of some recordings. It appears the artist has not quite determined and connected with his target audience. I guess it might be a challenge trying to excite a mixed crowd and thus tend to stray a bit from the jazz principles. It is a nice DVD. My friends who are not into jazz really enjoyed it and are looking forward to buying copies for themselves. Good!"