Anat Cohen’s Quartetinho Brings International Jazz Flavors to La Jolla
The sophisticated jazz ensemble Quartetinho opened the La Jolla Music Society’s fall season Sunday in the comfortable cabaret setting of The Conrad’s JAI Concert Hall. Under the ebullient leadership of clarinetist Anat Cohen, the ensemble offered a varied program of their own compositions peppered with offerings by Thelonious Monk and Antonin Dvorak.
(l. to r.) Vitor Gonçalves, Tal Mashiach, Anat Cohen and James Shipp [Photo (c.) Ken Jacques]
Quartetinho may be “little quartet” in Portuguese, but there is nothing diminutive about either the range or the caliber of this ensemble.
The program opened with Cohen’s “The Night Owl,” a sprightly piece with animated themes propelled by Cohen’s luxurious, mellow clarinet sonority, complemented by a combination of the percussive ring of James Shipp’s sparkling vibraphone riffs and Tal Mashiach’s quietly insistent pizzicato bass line. With a more relaxed tempo, Cohen and Shipp’s “Coco Rococo” alternated between Cohen’s sinuous, syncopated melodies and dreamy excursions from pianist Vitor Gonçalves.
Thelonious Monk’s classic 1952 “Trinkle, Tinkle,” awash in Shipp’s bravura vibraphone triplets, gave Cohen the more carefree melodies that balanced the strong rhythmic tensions between Shipp’s athletic piano statements and Mashiach’s articulate bass foundation.
Mashiach wove mesmerizing, dark guitar flourishes for his ingratiating ballad titled “Paco.” Gonçalves expanded these ideas into a dreamy piano intermezzo, but Cohen crowned the piece with an extravagant clarinet solo that soared into the highest register.
For Cohen’s “Valsa,” Gonçalves switched to accordion and, with the addition of Mashiach’s guitar and Shipp’s vibraphone, suggested the euphoria of waltzing carousel music.
In tribute to the composers typically heard at The Conrad, Quartetinho gave its take on Antonin Dvorak’s familiar “Going Home” theme from his New World Symphony. To open, Mashiach slowly bowed the melody in his lowest contrabass range, allowing Cohen to switch to bass clarinet to give Dvorak’s tune a rich, slightly melancholic edge, surrounded by the accordion and vibraphone riffs that pushed the piece in a decidedly jazzy direction.
Quartetinho closed its set with “Espinha de Bacalhao,” a Brazilian song that allowed Cohen to move from bass clarinet to B-flat clarinet as the piece expanded into its splashy finale.
This concert was presented by the La Jolla Music Society at The Conrad’s JAI Concert Hall on Sunday, October 6, 2024.
Ken Herman, a classically trained pianist and organist, has covered music for the San Diego Union, the Los Angeles Times’ San Diego Edition, and for sandiego.com. He has won numerous awards, including first place for Live Performance and Opera Reviews in the 2017, the 2018, and the 2019 Excellence in Journalism Awards competition held by the San Diego Press Club. A Chicago native, he came to San Diego to pursue a graduate degree and stayed.Read more…