Award-winning Israeli singer-songwriter Michal Cohen is recognized for the unique way in which she fuses the ancient sounds of her Yemenite heritage with contemporary jazz.
Cohen’s soaring vocals and soulful compositions opened this year’s Richardson Partners Financial Israeli Concert Series at the Rady Jewish Community Centre in Winnipeg recently.
Cohen, accompanied by local musicians, performed songs from her critically acclaimed debut CD, Henna, which she has been showcasing in North America and internationally since its release in early 2004.
Cohen says that her band Henna Project originally blended ancient Yemenite melodies with modern electronic beats, but after becoming involved in the New York jazz scene the band absorbed the jazz influence to create a sound she calls “henna jazz.”
She explains how she chose the word “henna” to describe her music. “As a child [born in Israel to Yemenite parents] I lived in the Yemenite town of Rosh HaAyin. I remember going to henna parties, which are traditional Yemenite wedding parties for women. At these parties, there were wonderful old ladies that used to sing and tap on big cans used for storing pickles. They would remove the pickles and make this emotional and happy music,” Cohen says.
“Years later, when I started with the Henna Project, I asked my mother to take me again to a henna party, so that I could remember everything about them.”
According to Cohen, in Yemen, Jewish women were not allowed to sing in Hebrew, as it was “sacred language” and instead they “wrote music in Arabic Yemenite.” She says, “This music was mostly about love that’s happening or happened or that is forbidden. I remember my mother singing and humming all the time while she cooked. As a child I heard this and that ethnic music influenced me.”
Cohen, who performed as a lead singer in an army band during her military service in Israel, says that the Henna Project was born after her father died in 2000. “His passing made me look back more into my tradition and that’s how this project was born.”
The song that is most dear to Cohen’s heart, which she performed in Winnipeg, is titled Aluva. It is “a song about my father and my brother, both who passed away,” she says. “It’s very emotional and sad, but it has an optimistic side. It’s about the worth of living your life [fully], rather than just floating through it.”
As a child, Cohen says she sang every kind of music that she heard. “I never thought that singing would be a profession for me… But I listened to all kinds of music,” she says
After receiving a scholarship to the Berkley College of Music in Boston, from which she graduated in 2000, Cohen remained in the United States until 2006, when she returned home to Israel.
“Going to the United States is tricky. Once I finished studying, I began to feel out the music scene. You get caught up, because there are so many things going on in New York where I moved to. So I stayed and stayed. At one point, I realized I would know when it was time to go back. And that’s what happened.
“I am glad to be back. I am happy to be with my family, even though the music scene is a bit smaller in Israel than New York,” says Cohen, who now lives near Tel Aviv.
Cohen has performed in Europe, Mexico, the Far East and in Canada at the Ottawa World Music Festival, as well as in the United States. Her vocals have been used for the soundtracks of two movies, Historias Minimas by Carlos Sorin and Divan by Pearl Gluck, and she has been featured on BBC London and PBS in the United States.
Cohen says that after a concert in Germany, “ a woman told me that she could hear all of my cultural roots from my voice.”
In Winnipeg, Cohen performed with Ted Poor, a drummer with whom she usually performs when she’s in New York. She was accompanied by talented local musicians Myron Schultz on clarinet, Steve Kirby on bass and Will Boness on piano.
Cohen, who was a finalist in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest and has been the recipient of the Vocal Jazz Cleo Laine Award, says she is currently working on a new CD that “will be out in a few months.
“The new CD of my music is going to be electronic, but it will have all kinds of influences,” she says.