There is a searching, yearning quality to Naked Truth, and a raw beauty and vulnerability in Avishai Cohen’s trumpet sound on his most improvisational ECM recording to date.

Very much music-of-the-moment, found and shaped in the course of a remarkable recording session in the South of France, Naked Truth takes the form of an extemporaneous suite. For most of its length, the Israeli trumpeter painstakingly leads the way, closely shadowed by his long-time comrades – pianist Yonathan Avishai, bassist Barak Mori and drummer Ziv Ravitz – who share an intuitive understanding, hyper alert to the music’s subtly-changing emphases. At the album’s conclusion, Cohen recites “Departure”, a poem by Zelda Schneurson Mishkovsky, whose themes of renunciation, acceptance and letting go seem optimally attuned to the mood of the music.

Naked Truth was recorded at Studios La Buissonne in Pernes-les-Fontaines, in September 2021, and produced by Manfred Eicher.

Avishai Cohen: trumpet

Yonathan Avishai: piano

Barak Mori: double bass

Ziv Ravitz: drums

“Naked Truth is beautifully executed and steered by the idea that improvising musicians good enough to play any headlong stream of consciousness can reveal a lot more if they sometimes play only a fraction of what they know…Cohen’s quietest but maybe boldest adventure.” – **** The Guardian