In recent decades several Israeli jazz musicians have emerged onto the international scene, incorporating stylistic elements of Israeli music in their jazz performances. Perhaps the most well-known of these musicians is bassist Avishai Cohen, whose style has become synonymous with “Israeli jazz.” Despite his high profile in an emerging and unique musical scene, not much has been written about Cohen’s compositional style. I provide biographical background on Cohen and present three Israeli traditions that he incorporates into his musical language: Songs of the Land of Israel (SLI), Sephardic music, and Mizrahi music. My study focuses on the harmony, melody, rhythm, and form of Avishai Cohen’s 2008 Album Gently Disturbed, and shows how he blends these distinct Israeli traditions with other stylistic elements to create his own unique musical language. Some of the characteristics of his language include triadic and diatonic harmonies that move by step, third, or ascending fifth, borrowed sonorities, minor v and major VII chords, minor keys, highly syncopated ostinatos that gradually evolve and are often rhythmically offset from each other, pairing simple harmonies with complex rhythms and complex harmonies with simple rhythms, rhythms highlighting two against three, grooves in uncommon meters or with uncommon subdivisions, pulses of five 16th notes, and theme and variations, through-composed, and binary forms. I show how Cohen uses these characteristics to add “gentle disturbances” to his music’s harmony, melody, rhythm, and form. I encourage hearing Avishai Cohen’s analysis from a perspective of “stylistic pluralism” (Hellhund, 2012) and suggest that analyses of modern jazz music should consider the diverse range of stylistic influences behind each artist to better understand what makes their music unique and personal.</p
