Avishai Cohen, Einstein… Favorite records and books

Disc – Avishai Cohen transmutes ashes into gold

Jazz – Since 2016 and the release of his “Into the Silence” for the ECM label, Israeli trumpeter Avishai Cohen – who is probably no longer confused with his namesake bassist – has shaped an art of breathing and composition with subtle but always tense by a gravity which came to weigh down its slender copper impulses. Still in a quartet, a formation stabilized for several years by the participation of pianist Yonathan Avishai, bassist Barak Mori and drummer Ziv Ravitz, he delivers with “Ashes to Gold” one of his best recordings since his gentle emergence on the international scene. More than ever absorbed by his meditative inclinations, the musician knows how to moire his fabrics, at the crossroads of jazz and classical, with patterns and rhythmic accelerations.

His five-part suite “Ashes to Gold” reveals him at the peak of his art, unfolding his azimuthal trumpet lines through swift pianistic and percussive articulations. A piece often performed live, the “Adagio assai” from “Concerto en sol” by Ravel, a composer who was then sliding towards jazz, testifies to his own aesthetic interests, while “The Seventh”, the seventh track of the album, pays tribute to his daughter’s musical writing. A superb recording that is difficult not to relate to Israeli news where the ashes have not yet yielded any gold… (BSE)

Disc – The unalterable youth of Mendelssohn

Classic – In the rich production of Felix Mendelssohn, the miraculous “Violin Concerto in E minor” of 1844 was prepared by numerous little-known pages for violin and piano which appeared throughout his short life. Violinist Denitsa Kazakova and pianist Sylviane Deferne explore the pages of studies with as much commitment as the more accomplished sonatas, developing a magnificent complicity and a fine understanding of Mendelssohn’s art, shared between confidences and effusion. For the dapper “Concerto for violin, piano and strings” from 1823, created as a family, nothing better than the Youth Orchestra of French-speaking Switzerland, supervised by the violinist and members of the Sine Nomine Quartet. Opening reception at the Mathod temple on October 13 (5 p.m.). lesclassiquesdemathod.ch (MCH)

BD – The Return of Einstein

Graphic novel – Is there a connection between the Rolling Stones and Albert Einstein? Certainly yes for the physicist Etienne Klein. An absolute fan of the former, the French scientist came across the author of the theory of relativity in a dream, while he was listening to Jagger and his band on his turntable. With Einstein, who died years before his birth, Klein will explore the metaverse. Together, they review the major discoveries and events that have occurred since the disappearance of the author of the equation E = mc2. And sometimes, Albert falls from a height…It’s all said in the supertitle of this impeccably documented graphic novel: what if Einstein came back? In the screenplay, LF Bollée popularizes the abstract scientific notions developed in the story. Christian Durieux’s drawing and its imagery also make this road movie as zany as it is scholarly more accessible. (PMU)

Free – Summer Trouble 45

Roman - Released in paperback by Bourgois, this short novel by Maurice Pons is worth for the mystery, the tension and the disturbance it arouses. Metrobate is the name of a character in a tragedy by Nicomedes, who ends up being hated by everyone, being seen as a traitor. It is the same for this young tutor who seduces the family who welcomes him in the summer by the sea to help young Hervé progress in Latin. Is the young professor, dandy and charmer hiding something? After the fascination, doubt sets in. In the summer of 1945, the hunt for collaborators was on. But is the tutor? Anyway, there are worse things. He is… This will never be written but we guess it little by little when reading. (OBO)

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