Berklee Marsalis Jams: The Three Cohens, April 14 and 15

Berklee College of Music and Marsalis Music present Marsalis Berklee Jams, a program that brings up-and-coming jazz artists to Boston for performances with Berklee students, as well as master classes and clinics. The featured artist for this seventh installment of Marsalis Jams are the Three Cohens Sextet with Yuval Cohen, Anat Cohen, and Avishai, all Berklee alumni; also with Aaron Goldberg, Matt Pennman, and Greg Hutchinson.

On April 14 and 15, the Three Cohens will present two master classes at 1:00 p.m, as well as jam sessions and a performance. While participation in the jam sessions are open to Berklee students only, tickets for the concert/jam sessions are available to the public. The jams take place at Berklee's Cafe 939, 939 Boylston Street. Thursday evening's performance is at 8:00 p.m., doors open at 7:30 p.m. and tickets are $10. For tickets or more information, call 617 747-2261 or visit Berklee.edu/events. Shows at Cafe 939 are all ages. 

The three Cohen siblings, Yuval, Anat, and Avishai, have had a very similar musical path. Growing up in Tel-Aviv under the same roof, attending the same day schools, and the same music conservatory in the afternoons have helped shape their musical taste, approach and ideas. The Three Cohens had a classical music background that included some symphonic orchestral playing. But it didn't take long before they discovered their lifelong love of jazz music. The World Scholarship Tour awarded the three of them scholarships to attend Berklee College of Music where they got to expand their musical taste and develop themselves musically. Their individual virtuosity, creativity, and exceptional taste only serve to enhance the music that primarily stems from their mutual respect and love for one another, as family, and as musicans.

This is the seventh Marsalis Berklee Jams, following programs with Miguel Zenón, Sean Jones, Fly, Dafnis Prieto, and Claudia Acuña. Marsalis Jams was conceived by Branford Marsalis as an initiative to provide meaningful interaction between established musical ensembles and dedicated student musicians at the high school and college levels. The program consists of mini-residencies that include classroom interaction and culminate in performance/jam sessions in which the visiting band follows an opening set of its own music by inviting student musicians on stage to play. Since 2003, the program has been successfully presented in colleges and high schools in Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Texas.