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Avishai Cohen’s 2003 debut, first only available on CD now lovingly reissued by Fresh Sound New Talent!

"It's a good moment for trumpeters in jazz. Wynton Marsalis has been performing at his peak recently; Dave Douglas still comes up with a different band every year; Jeremy Pelt, Keyon Harrold, LeRon Thomas and Jonathan Finlayson are among the promising new arrivals. Avishai Cohen is the latest to step forward with a first recording. (There has been confusion: he has the same name as a prominent young bassist in New York, and they're both Israeli.)

Mr. Cohen's album, "The Trumpet Player," on the Spanish label Fresh Sound, is a thrown gauntlet: it's almost all just a trio of trumpet, bass and drums. Playing as the leader without a chordal instrument places incredible demands on a trumpeter; outside of the avant-garde, it hasn't been done much before. But Mr. Cohen, evidently, likes the challenge. With the bassist John Sullivan and the drummer Jeff Ballard, he plows ahead, rooted in disciplined eighth-note playing but regularly breaking out into more abstract, intuitive phrases; he's got some of the confident tone and rhythm of Clifford Brown under his fingers, and plays battling, hard hitting figures and intervals." - The New York Times