Born in Tel Aviv, Israel, Anat grew up with musical siblings; her older brother, Yuval, is himself a saxophonist of note, and her younger brother, Avishai, is one of New York’s busiest trumpeters. She began clarinet studies at age 12 and played jazz on clarinet for the first time in her Jaffa conservatory’s Dixieland band. At 16 she joined the school’s big band and learned to play the tenor saxophone. The same year, Anat entered the prestigious “Thelma Yelin” High School for the Arts, where she majored in jazz. After graduation, she discharged her mandatory Israeli military service duty from 1993-95, playing tenor saxophone in the Israeli Air Force band.
In 1996, Anat headed to Boston to matriculate at Berklee College of Music. There she met faculty member Phil Wilson, who encouraged her to play clarinet, other inspiring teachers such as Greg Hopkins, Ed Tomassi, Hal Crook, George Garzone, and Bill Pierce, and an elite international peer group of students.
“Berklee was crucial to my development as a musician” says Anat. “I was very closed-minded when I got there. I just wanted to play Coltrane, to play jazz; I didn’t think of world music at all. Since Berklee gives scholarships to musicians from all over the world the student body ends up being very diverse. I met many people who played music from their own country and I came to understand when a chart says ‘Latin’ on top it means almost nothing. You need to know if the music is from the northeast of Brazil, the west coast of Colombia, or someplace else on the continent. I was inspired to explore world music, starting with the music of South America, in detail”.
During her Berklee years, Anat visited New York during breaks between semesters, making a beeline for Smalls to soak up the hybrid of grooves, world music and mainstream jazz that people like Jason Lindner and Omer Avital—a high school bandmate of her older brother—were then evolving. Back in Boston, she played tenor saxophone in a variety of musical contexts; Afro-Cuban music with Ecuadorian bassist Alex Alvear in a group called Mango Blue, Argentinean and original music with pianist Pablo Ablanedo, and klezmer music at weddings. Called by Brazilian bassist Leonardo Cioglia for Brazilian Popular Music gigs, Anat learned selections from the songbooks of Ivan Lins, Milton Nascimento,
and Toninho Horta, and studied Brazilian percussion to master the associated rhythms. The group evolved into an instrumental quartet that gigged weekly. After Cioglia left for New York, jobs with Fernando Brandao, a Brazilian flutist, provided Anat with more opportunities to play Brazilian music and exposed her to choro, a particularly challenging Brazilian musical genre, for the first time.
Once ensconced in New York, Anat quickly found work in various Brazilian ensembles, including a gig with the high-octane pop band Brazooca at the Café Wha in Greenwich Village. “One night there I met Pedro Ramos,” she recalls, referring to the tenor guitarist and cavaquinho player who had recently
organized the Choro Ensemble, “He showed up at my house the next day with songs for me to learn for a demo CD he was set to make the following week. When we started to play the music, I fell in love with it, and it immediately rekindled my desire to play clarinet. Choro employs classical European harmonic
progressions and demands a classical approach to technique on the instrument. It offers the alegria (happiness) of the samba, nostalgia, saudade (longing), groove, and high energy. It requires constant interaction and allows for improvisation. It has all the important elements I think great music should have, and requires true dedication to learn to play it authentically. It has been the mainstay of my clarinet playing for the last seven years”.
In addition to The Choro Ensemble, Anat plays with New York Samba Jazz, a modernist quintet led by Brazilian drum master Duduka Da Fonseca, and with her brothers as “The Three Cohens”. She has long held the lead tenor saxophone chair in Sherrie Maricle’s Diva Jazz Orchestra, the top-shelf all-woman big band, with which she has toured the world. Since 2004, she has played the music of Louis Armstrong with David Ostwald’s “Gully Low Jazz Band”. She has explored the music of Bix Beiderbecke, Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet and their Pan-American contemporaries. Anat currently leads a young quartet with guitarist Gilad Hekselman, bassist Eduardo Perez, and drummer Ferenc Nemeth. Her playing and studying of a wide range of musical styles has culminated in her finding her own distinctive musical voice.
Lonnie's Lament
Anat Cohen Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Mille fois tu pris ton bagage mille fois je pris mon envol
Et chaque meuble se souvient dans cette chambre sans berceau
Des éclats des vieilles tempêtes plus rien ne ressemblait à rien
Tu avais perdu le goût de l'eau et moi celui de la conquête.
Mais mon amour, mon doux mon tendre mon merveilleux amour
De l'aube claire jusqu'à la fin du jour, je t'aime encore tu sais je t'aime.
Moi je sais tous tes sortilèges, tu sais tous mes envoûtements
Bien sûr tu pris quelques amants il fallait bien passer le temps
Il faut bien que le corps exulte finalement finalement
Il nous fallut bien du talent pour être vieux sans être adultes
Ô mon amour, mon doux mon tendre mon merveilleux amour
De l'aube claire jusqu'à la fin du jour, je t'aime encore tu sais je t'aime.
Et plus le temps nous fait cortège et plus le temps nous fait tourment
Mais n'est-ce pas le pire piège que vivre en paix pour des amants
Bien sûr tu pleures un peu moins tôt je me déchire un peu plus tard
Nous protégeons moins nos mystères on laisse moins faire le hasard
On se méfie du fil de l'eau mais c'est toujours la tendre la guerre.
Ô mon amour, mon doux mon tendre mon merveilleux amour
De l'aube claire jusqu'à la fin du jour, je t'aime encore tu sais je t'aime?
The lyrics to Anat Cohen's "La Chanson Des Vieux Amants" (The Song of Old Lovers) tell the story of a couple who have been together for 20 years and have weathered many storms. They have had their disagreements, their separations, and have each had their own past relationships, but through it all they remain deeply in love with each other. The first verse describes the constant back-and-forth of their relationship, with each of them leaving and returning many times. The second verse speaks to the memories held in the furniture of their room, which has seen their fair share of fights and make-ups.
Line by Line Meaning
Bien sûr nous eûmes des orages vingt ans d'amour c'est l'amour fol
Of course we had storms, twenty years of love is crazy love.
Mille fois tu pris ton bagage mille fois je pris mon envol
A thousand times you took your luggage, a thousand times I took off.
Et chaque meuble se souvient dans cette chambre sans berceau
And every piece of furniture remembers in this room without a cradle.
Des éclats des vieilles tempêtes plus rien ne ressemblait à rien
The remnants of old storms, nothing looked like anything.
Tu avais perdu le goût de l'eau et moi celui de la conquête.
You had lost the taste of water and I had lost the taste for conquest.
Mais mon amour, mon doux mon tendre mon merveilleux amour
But my love, my sweet, my tender, my wonderful love.
De l'aube claire jusqu'à la fin du jour, je t'aime encore tu sais je t'aime.
From the clear dawn until the end of the day, I still love you, you know I love you.
Moi je sais tous tes sortilèges, tu sais tous mes envoûtements
I know all your spells, you know all my enchantments.
Tu m'as gardé de piège en piège, je t'ai perdue de temps en temps
You kept me from trap to trap, I lost you from time to time.
Bien sûr tu pris quelques amants il fallait bien passer le temps
Of course, you had a few lovers, we had to pass the time somehow.
Il faut bien que le corps exulte finalement finalement
The body must eventually exult, eventually.
Il nous fallut bien du talent pour être vieux sans être adultes
It took a lot of talent to be old without being adults.
Ô mon amour, mon doux mon tendre mon merveilleux amour
Oh my love, my sweet, my tender, my wonderful love.
De l'aube claire jusqu'à la fin du jour, je t'aime encore tu sais je t'aime.
From the clear dawn until the end of the day, I still love you, you know I love you.
Et plus le temps nous fait cortège et plus le temps nous fait tourment
And the more time accompanies us, the more time torments us.
Mais n'est-ce pas le pire piège que vivre en paix pour des amants
But isn't the worst trap to live in peace for lovers?
Bien sûr tu pleures un peu moins tôt je me déchire un peu plus tard
Of course, you cry a little later, I tear a little later.
Nous protégeons moins nos mystères on laisse moins faire le hasard
We protect our mysteries less, we leave less to chance.
On se méfie du fil de l'eau mais c'est toujours la tendre la guerre.
We're wary of the current, but it's always a tender war.
Ô mon amour, mon doux mon tendre mon merveilleux amour
Oh my love, my sweet, my tender, my wonderful love.
De l'aube claire jusqu'à la fin du jour, je t'aime encore tu sais je t'aime?
From the clear dawn until the end of the day, I still love you, you know I love you?
Lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: GERARD JOUANNEST, JACQUES ROMAN BREL
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind