It’s been a jam-packed week for Anat Cohen, who just landed last week in Israel and is still fighting jet lag. She has been visiting friends and family and celebrating the recent release of her solo jazz album “Time & Place.”
Her launching party at Tel Aviv’s Zappa Club buoyed her.
“The place was sold out, and that definitely warms the heart,” said Cohen. “Now I’m saving up the strength for the double performance at the Jazz weekend in Ceasaria.”
Cohen, who is closing in on 30, has been living in the United States for the past decade and excelling in the world of jazz.
From clarinet to saxophone
Music drew her in at an early age. With the support of her parents, she started clarinet lessons and continued primarily in classical music.
When she was 15, studying at Jaffa Music Center, she was encouraged to play the saxophone in a local Big Band. It was not an easy fit at first.
“I felt that the instrument was too big for me. After years of playing the clarinet, it felt strange to me, but in the end, I learned to play both,” she reminisced.
That same year, Cohen joined her school’s new jazz program, and despite her insistence on focusing on the clarinet, she was pressured to play the sax there too.
When she enlisted, she joined the Air Force band and studied jazz in depth.
“I stayed in Israel for a year after the army, and I played with Yossi Banai during his saxophone, clarinet and flute performance, said Cohen. “Today, it’s not enough to know only one instrument.”
The music bug has also infected other members of her family. One brother Avishai is a respected trumpeter in the ensemble “Third World Love” and another brother, Yuval, is a saxophone soprano. It was these two who helped pull her into the world of jazz.
Going Stateside
When brother Yuval went to Berkley to study music, Anat Cohen also tried her luck and won a scholarship to study in Boston.
“At that moment, I didn’t think that it was the right thing to do. I just went,” she said.
After two and a half years of intensive study, she went to New York, and the move did her good. She played in everything from Swing to Brazilian bands, inspiring her to work on her own solo project.
“I started writing music and I felt that my business card carried no weight without a solo album,” she recalled. “I wanted to document and record all my creativeness.”
Touring Israel
In Ceasaria, Cohen plans to play with two ensembles. She will play, along with her two brothers, in the “Cohanim Sextuplet,” which will be a tribute to jazz giant Louis Armstrong.
The second performance will be with the five-woman ensemble “Five Play.”
“Everything that’s been happening to me, the album, the performances, it all seems to me like a dream that I just want to continue and expand.”
