Jazz musician honors formative influences

By AMY FLETCHER-Associated Press
Saturday, March 22, 2014
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - Robert Cohen clearly remembers the first jazz song that grabbed him by the ears: Art Blakey’s “Split Kick,” from the 1954 Blue Note release “A Night at Birdland Vol. 1,” which he heard on the radio as a teen in the late ‘70s.

“It’s maybe not the first jazz song I ever heard, but it’s the one that woke me up to jazz, where I just realized the beauty of it, the dexterity required, and the sheer amount of energy that a jazz song can produce,” Cohen said. “Sometimes a song just catches you at the right moment and you never forget it.”

Cohen’s response to Blakey’s song has never really ended, it’s only grown deeper. Nearly 40 years later, this well-known local jazz musician and music teacher is both an artist and a fan who has become intimately familiar with the remarkable tunes he heard as a New Jersey teen. Last week, Cohen and five friends presented a selection of those songs, including “Split Kick,” at the Gold Town Nickelodeon as part of the KRNN Spotlight Music Series.

“My criteria for these choices was personal favorites, tunes I’ve loved all my life, but with an ear for what I thought could be presented well to an audience, and would be fun for a larger group of musicians to play and enjoyable to hear.”

Joining Cohen on stage was frequent collaborators and longtime Juneau musicians Clay Good on drums and Doug Bridges on sax, as well as more unusual bandmates Mike Bucy on trombone and Alexei Painter on bass. Guest artist Dale Curtis of Ketchikan, whom Cohen met several years ago during an informal jam session at Doc Waters, rounds out the sextet on trumpet.

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