Israel-born clarinetist assoluta Anat Cohen accompanied by the Choro Aventuroso ensemble — Victor Goncalves accordion, Cesar Garabini on a 7-string guitar and Serginho on the Pandeiro, a large tambourine producing sounds I’d never heard — dazzled the August 22 crowd at Broadway’s 54 Below Club. Cohen — voted “clarinetist of the year” seven years in…
Some two decades ago, bassist Omer Avital stepped off a plane from his native Israel and into a jazz scene in Manhattan’s West Village that was nearly devoid of his countrymen and their music. It was a lonely time, he said, and when he set up shop in Smalls, a dark and slightly tattered basement…
So, what was a non-Jewish, non-Israeli Cuban doing organizing the NYC Israeli Jazz Festival, anyway? “Someone had to do it,” said Roberto Rodriguez who composes, leads and plays drums for the Cuban Jewish All-Stars. After 20 shows and over 1000 people passing through the doors at John Zorn’s non-profit jazz space The Stone last week,…
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