This edition of Jazz Beat features an interview that Tom Reney conducted with Anat Cohen in 2008 when she was the Billy Taylor Artist in Residence at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.
Over the course of an hour-long conversation, Cohen discusses her upbringing in a musical family from Tel Aviv; her passion for Brazilian music; the influence of Louis Armstrong and John Coltrane; and the growth of jazz in Israel and her prominence among the musicians who have emigrated from Israel to the U.S. over the past two decades.
The interview includes excerpts of Anat’s music; since it was taped a decade ago, her career has continued to flourish through international touring and the release of several critically-acclaimed albums. Her latest is a duo performance with pianist Fred Hersch in which they play the Duke Ellington-Billy Strayhorn standard, “Isfahan.”