Cross My Palm with Silver

Personnel: Avishai Cohen (trumpet); Yonathan Avishai (piano); Barak Mori (double bass); Nasheet Waits (drums).Recording information: Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-Les-Fontaines (09/2016).Photographer: Caterina di Perri.On his ECM debut, 2016's Into the Silence, Avishai Cohen was toiling with the death of his father and understandably, the album was deeply ruminative and introspective. With his sophomore ECM outing, 2017's equally nuanced Cross My Palm with Silver, the trumpeter is no less reflective, yet the album feels somehow lighter, more clear-eyed and less shrouded in sadness. Prior to working with producer Manfred Eicher at ECM, the Israeli-born Cohen (who studied at Boston's Berklee College of Music) was known as a boundary-pushing maverick whose various projects found him moving from extroverted bop standards to groove-oriented klezmer jazz, avant-garde improvisation, and expansive, ambient soundscapes. Cross My Palm with Silver finds Cohen achieving a better balance between his