AVISHAI COHEN + SOPHYE SOLIVEAU

Union Chapel, Compton Terrace, London

Avishai Cohen is globally recognized as a one of the leading voices on trumpet and a musician with an individual sound and a questing spirit, an ever-creative player-composer open to multiple strains of jazz and active as a leader, co-leader and sideman.

The title of his new album is Ashes To Gold but the mere confidence, narrative power and emotion, made this concert a small miracle.

Opening the evening is singer, harpist, and choir conductor Sophye Soliveau. Nurtured on Afro-American music since childhood, she studied classical harp and choral singing at the Conservatoire. Since then, she has broken out of the narrow confines of classical education, moving into soul, jazz and gospel.

“Cohen is a multicultural jazz musician, among whose ancestors is Miles Davis. Like Davis, he can make the trumpet a vehicle for uttering the most poignant human cries.”

Thomas Conrad, JazzTimes