Last night I attended the first of two nights by the Avishai Cohen Quartet at the bluewhale in Little Tokyo. I fully knew what to expect from Cohen whose album Cross My Palm with Silver is one of my favorites of the year. What I didn’t expect was the amazing pianist who performs in the quartet: Gadi Lehavi.
From what I’ve been able to learn since last night, he was a prodigy at the Berklee School of Music. That word gets tossed around far too easily, but even his own instructor aptly referred to him as such in this clip:
Last night his playing was so sublime. And inventive. And imaginative. And passionate. Simply put, I was blown away. And he’s only 21. Cohen knew what he was doing when he asked him along for the tour.
In this clip, which is 5 years old, he is at the Blue Note with his own arrangement of “Legend.”
If you don’t have plans tonight (Saturday), I strongly urge you to hear some amazing music. I think you’ll be just as blown away by this young master pianist as I was. And for the record, Avishai Cohen is certainly one of the best trumpet players in jazz right now. If you go, you’ll be glad you saw him in a club of this size.
