Greg Cohen story
Niterise
Side man
Summit's Greg Cohen has played with everyone from Tom Waits to Elvis
Costello to John Zorn. And for this busy bassist, the beat goes on ....
By George Kanzler
STAR-LEDGER STAFF ś
ś
"He's not only a bass player, he's the bass player of choice," says
jazz drummer Jake Hanna of Greg Cohen. ś
Hanna's not alone in that opinion. Cohen, a Summit resident, has
produced or appeared on nearly 100 albums, including two brand-new ones -
jazz clarinetist Kenny Davern's "Smiles" (Arbors Jazz) and eclectic
singer/songwriter Tom Waits' "Mule Variations" (Epitaph). He's also just
recorded a new album with pop singer Fiona Apple and can be heard on last
year's Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach collaboration "Painted from
Memory." ś
Cohen will also be keeping a high profile at two jazz festivals in
New York next month. At the Knitting Factory's Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival,
he'll be playing with the avant-garde quartet John Zorn's Masada as well as
Dave Douglas' Charms of the Night Sky. At the city-wide JVC Jazz Festival,
he'll participate in concert tributes to Benny Goodman's big band and Louis
Armstrong's early small groups. He'll also be sitting in with pianist Johnny
Varro's trio at Shanghai Jazz in Madison June 10. ś
"Greg plays everything from dinosaur music to dinner music, from
steakhouse to Stravinsky," says Waits. "He is a Renaissance man and a road
hog. He will always be the most indispensable member of the band." ś
Cohen, 45, a California native, is one of those rare musicians who
defies typecasting, recording and performing across a wide spectrum of jazz
and pop music. Last week found him joining folk singer Loudon Wainwright III
in gigs at New York's Bottom Line. In April he was in Japan, touring with
Hanna, traditional jazz pianist Ralph Sutton and clarinetist Davern. ś
"I see it all as music," says Cohen. "The reason I like being a bass
player is I am not only attracted to playing a lot of different tunes, from
different epochs of musical history, but I also like how you can affect the
rhythm of an ensemble, whatever it is, by the inflections of what you play.
Depending on who I'm playing with, I get to attack the bass in different
ways, with different rhythmic feels. That keeps me from getting bored doing
one thing." ś
Cohen's history with Waits is a long one. The bassist has appeared
on nearly all his albums since 1978. Cohen, who studied at Sonoma College
and the California School of the Arts, was 25 when Waits, who'd heard about
him through other musicians, asked him to audition for an upcoming tour. ś
"Waits was auditioning a whole new band," remembers Cohen, "but he
auditioned us all at once, so he couldn't really tell how well each of us
played, individually. So he ended up hiring the whole band. At the time, I
was playing with a lounge band in Los Angeles, doing the schlocky pop tunes
of the day, so Tom rescued me from all that." ś
Their relationship goes beyond music - they're also brothers-in-law.
While attending Waits' wedding in 1980, Cohen first met his wife-to-be,
Marguerite Brennan, an artist and potter. She was also the sister of the
bride, songwriter Kathleen Brennan. Greg and Marguerite married two years
later. ś
Working with Waits, Cohen also began arranging and producing music.
In 1990, he traveled to Hamburg, Germany, to serve as musical director on
"The Black Rider," a stage collaboration between Waits and avant-garde
producer/composer Robert Wilson. ś
Cohen, according to Waits, "is an irreplaceable obstetrician in the
birthing room of the recording studio. He knows arranging, conducting,
composing, bow-making and electricity." ś
Playing Waits' blues-and-R&B-influenced music wasn't a stretch for
Cohen, who was in a rock band with his older brother, Dan, in their
Hollywood neighborhood when he was 6. ś
"I wanted to be the drummer," he recalls, "but one of the older boys
said if I took the drums he'd beat me up. My brother and another older boy
already had the guitars, so I was left with the bass. Actually it was an old
'58 Gibson guitar with two top strings off and the others tuned down an
octave." ś
After the family moved from Hollywood to the San Fernando Valley
section of Los Angeles, Cohen took up the upright bass at Taft High School.
ś
"Ken Camp, the music director at Taft, was a veteran of big bands,"
says Cohen, "and was a big influence on a lot of kids there. He got us
interested in music for all the right reasons. I ended up in the stage band,
which was pretty good, playing jazz charts, including things from the Count
Basie band book. That's when I got bitten by the jazz bug." ś
Cohen's musical interests were stretched further in college, when he
became interested in classical music, especially baroque and Bach. Although
he hasn't played in chamber orchestras since moving to the East Coast in
1984 ("I'd like to, but I'd have to practice a lot more with the bow,
develop that other muscle") he says he listens mostly to classical music
when at home. ś
Although he was involved in what he calls "bebop and beyond" in Los
Angeles, Cohen says that "as a side man, a bass player, I liked playing kind
of rootsy music, not intellectual or over the top, but things you could
dance to or at least tap your foot to. In L.A. I hooked up with Jim Hession,
a student of Eubie Blake's who also played Harlem stride piano. His wife,
Martha, sang Broadway show tunes and pop standards, so between them I
learned a whole repertory of tunes I wasn't used to." ś
Then, while on the road, Cohen met Eddie Davis, who was playing
banjo with Leon Redbone, whose band was sharing a tour with Waits. ś
"I was really taken with Eddie," remembers Cohen. "Here's a guy who
could play 'Sophisticated Lady' with all the right harmonies on a tenor
banjo. We used to hang out backstage together, so when I came to New York in
1984 I called him, and pretty soon I was working with him occasionally.
Through him I met Carol Sayer, another banjo player, and before I knew it I
was playing all this trad jazz, old-timey music, learning a whole other set
of tunes. ś
"These were banjo tunes and really old songs like 'Waiting for the
Robert E. Lee' and 'Alabamy Bound,' songs I didn't know from Adam. But I
liked it, the directness of the music and freshness of the chord changes,
harmonies that went in a different direction from the world of pop standards
and bebop." ś
Cohen began meeting and working with more traditional jazz and
neo-swing musicians, including Davern and another clarinetist, Ken
Peplowski, with whom he'll share the stage at the Benny Goodman tribute. ś
"I liked the way he played the first time we worked together,"
Davern says. "There's a depth to his playing. You know that he's heard a
lot, hasn't just come up the pike and turned it on. He's done a lot of
listening, a lot of observing, and it's obvious in his playing. He has a
presence." ś
The admiration is mutual. Of Davern, Cohen says, "I really enjoy
playing with him. Kenny loves old tunes from the 1920s and 1930s, but he can
take them and make them sound modern. He never goes in expected directions,
he can go anywhere." ś
Going anywhere is what Cohen is about too. Trumpeter Dave Douglas,
Cohen's bandmate in Masada, says, "What I love about him so much is he's a
complete musician. When he's playing a piece, it's not about the bass part
or trying to be flashy, it's about understanding the whole composition and
adding to that in whatever way he can." ś
But, says Douglas, Cohen is also a great rhythm accompanist. "He's
able to give a groove all by himself. In my quartet, Charms of the Night
Sky, there's no drummer, so a lot of the time it falls to Greg to be the
whole rhythm section - and he is. It's so great to feel that happening." ś
In Masada there is a drummer, but no chordal instrument (piano or
guitar), so Cohen says he has to "outline motion and harmony in a linear
way." And he likes that different approach to the bass in jazz ensembles. A
few months ago Cohen brought a trio into the Knitting Factory that consisted
of himself, Peplowski and another reed player, Marty Ehrlich, playing mostly
bass clarinet. ś
"The idea of that openness, no chordal instruments or drums, just
bass and clarinets, has always appealed to my creative side," says Cohen.
"The bass has a different role, you take on harmonic leadership. I want to
do that trio again." ś
In the meantime, Cohen's production credits continue to grow. He's
produced more than a dozen records so far, including the debut album of
singer Madeline Peyroux, and recordings by Irish singer Mary Conklin, as
well as a duo of Portuguese guitarists playing traditional fado music. ś
One of his first producing projects was a 1991 album for Canadian
singer Holly Cole, titled "Blame It On My Youth." It became a big hit in
Japan, retitled "Calling You" for the song that became a Japanese hit. ś
Davern remembers shopping with Cohen in a record store in Kobe,
Japan, last month. ś
"We couldn't explain anything in English to the clerks, so a young
man (in the store) who'd studied oboe in California became our translator,"
Davern says. "There was a record playing on the sound system, some girl
singer. Greg looks up and says, 'I produced that record, it's Holly Cole.'
The oboist 'oohs' and looks up at Greg with such reverence you'd think he
was in a Shinto shrine." ś
Brother-in-law Waits sums Cohen up in his own inimitable way: ś
"I think of a close-up of a praying mantis, slowly eating a leaf,"
Waits says. "Careful, focused, confident, relaxed." ś
śGreg Cohen on the record
ś
Greg Cohen has appeared on, or produced, close to 100 albums.
Here is a sampling that includes some of his personal favorites. ś
AS LEADER: "Way Low" Greg Cohen (DIW) (1998) ś
Named for an obscure Duke Ellington tune, this album has an
eclectic cast of musicians, all of whom Cohen has worked with before, but
not together. And it swings. ś
"Moment to Moment," Greg Cohen Quartet (DIW) (1997) ś
A impromptu quartet date by Cohen with veteran L.A.
musicians Teddy Edwards, tenor sax; Gerry Wiggins, piano, and Donald Bailey,
drums. ś
AS SIDE MAN: "One From the Heart: Original Soundtrack," Tom
Waits and Crystal Gayle (Columbia, 1982). ś
"The Black Rider," Tom Waits (Polygram, 1993) ś
Cohen first became involved in producing and arranging with Waits
on the "One from the Heart" soundtrack for the Francis Ford Coppola film. He
not only assisted in the production of "The Black Rider," but played a
number of instruments and composed incidental music. ś
"Weird Nightmare: Meditations on Mingus," Hal Willner, producer
(Columbia) (1992) ś
Cohen is the only bassist on this cross-genre tribute to the great
jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus. ś
"Loose," Victoria Williams (Mammoth/Atlantic) (1994) ś
Cohen has worked with the pop/folk singer more than once. This is
his favorite album of the one he's done with her. ś
"Terrible," Terry Adams (New World) (1995) ś
An adventurous outing from the NRBQ keyboardist, who mixes modern
jazz and rock musicians. Cohen plays upright bass. ś
"Masada: Live in Jerusalem - 1994" (Tzadik) ś
Cohen likes the "energy" of this live two-CD recording of the
quartet with John Zorn, Dave Douglas and Joey Baron. It's one of 12 Masada
albums. ś
"Circle Maker," John Zorn (Tzadik) (1998) ś
This album features the Masada String Trio, with Cohen, cellist
Erik Friedlander and violinist Mark Feldman. ś
"Charms of the Night Sky," Dave Douglas (Allegro) (1998) ś
Trumpeter Douglas' unusual group is rounded out by the accordion of
Guy Klucevsek, Feldman's violin and Cohen's bass. ś
"Grenadilla," Ken Peplowski (Concord Jazz) (1998) ś
Mostly a clarinets with rhythm section album, it also includes
Cohen's "Variations," arranged for an all-clarinet ensemble. ś
"Painted from Memory," Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach (Mercury)
(1998) ś
Cohen, playing mostly electric bass guitar, teams up with veteran
West Coast studio drummer Jim Keltner, one of his favorites, on this pop
album. ś
AS PRODUCER:
"Blame It on My Youth," The Holly Cole Trio (Manhattan) (1991) ś
"Dreamland," Madeline Peyroux (Atlantic) (1996)
- George Kanzler ś
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