Omer Avital, hailed by the LA Times as “a pioneer in combining jazz with myriad world music elements,” is a composer, a virtuosic bassist, an oud player and an active force on the world music scene for well over a decade. This recording features Omer Avital's quintet performing several jazz pieces Live at Smalls Jazz Club in Greenwich Village.

Tenor saxophonist Mark Turner makes his ECM debut as leader on this session featuring Avishai Cohen on trumpet, double bassist Joe Martin and drummer Marcus Gilmore. The quartet of kindred spirits, often entwining in serpentine fashion, plays long, introspective lines of hypnotic grace; the lithe rhythm section providing subtle volatility. With no chordal instrument in the band, the music opens up and takes on an attractive spaciousness. The songs display the long-breathed essence characteristic of Turner’s work, where melody takes priority. There is also mystery to the album, a quality of patient storytelling to the compositions.

Between 2019 and 2022, the newly minted trio of Jimi Prasad, Avishai Cohen and Yuvi Havkin assembled a small army of musicians from their home base in Tel Aviv and around the world to form Jimi Prasad Orchestra. Slowly but surely, the sound of the Orchestra came into focus: timeless, cosmic and classical-influenced; rooted in ambient jazz; meditation music for the masses sleeping through their waking lives.

"From Darkness" sees the Israeli composer, bassist and singer go back to the very core of his musical idiom and activity, but with Avishai, what may seem as a return to the basics always brings the promise of a new beginning. "From Darkness" once again opens an essential gateway into a new creative and expressive dimension. It is the first time since Gently Disturbed that I have the feeling I am reaching a new, fresh and incredibly substantial form with the trio. A belief reinforced by two outstanding partners, pianist Nitai Hershkovits and drummer Daniel Dor. Both Nitai and Daniel take my music to places and perspectives that I had never suspected it would go and I couldn t dream of anything better. Avishai goes on to describe this chemistry between them as; Here, three becomes one.

Trumpeter Avishai Cohen follows his impressionistic, critically-lauded ECM debut with "Cross My Palm With Silver", five pieces that put the focus on the ensemble, on teamwork, with a quartet of the highest calibre. The adroit, almost telepathic interplay among the musicians allows Cohen to soar; his "dream team" of pianist Yonathan Avishai, double bassist Barak Mori and drummer Nasheet Waits share his sense for daring improvisation and his feeling for structure.

"New Song" features a quintet which Omer Avital has led for many years, and which is a direct descendant of the ensemble with which Avital made a name for himself when he first arrived in New York. However, this current group is imbued with the cultural heritage that the bass player took time exploring in the mid-2000s, when he returned to his homeland to reconnect with his ancestral roots Yemenite on his mother's side and Moroccan on his father's. With Omer Avital, the integration of jazz with the musical traditions of the Arab world is more than just a convenient meeting.

Now one of the most popular jazz players of the past decade, Avishai Cohen takes his artistic approach to its zenith, with "Seven Seas". Featuring nursery rhymes, lullabies and suites in which heroic inspiration and symphonics abound. "Seven Seas" plunges us into a fabulous sound voyage, in which understatement and magnitude play a never-ending game of ping-pong, a trip that easily transposes to the silver screen.

Avishai Cohen – The 50 Gold Selection is a collection of Avishai Cohen’s most popular songs chosen by his fans through a 2019 fan survey in a unique Limited Edition Vinyl Box Set featuring 6 remastered Golden 180gr LPs.

Many musicians dream of making a record with a symphony orchestra, but few can afford to make it a reality. Thanks to an extraordinary ability to compose melodies that take root in his listeners’ minds and because he has, for years, patiently performed these compositions on stage to the point where they are practically a part of him, Avishai Cohen was well-positioned to execute such an ambition. As Cohen himself notes, his songs seem predisposed to adaptation at an orchestral scale, and the fact that they retain the same intensity that has provoked such widespread admiration demonstrates the vigor of his music.