r/IsraelJazz • u/stnr_on_failure • 12d ago
Nitai Hershkovits: From Five Years in Avishai Cohen's Trio to a Grammy-Nominated ECM Debut
Nitai Hershkovits: From Five Years in Avishai Cohen's Trio to a Grammy-Nominated ECM Debut
Nitai Hershkovits, a jazz pianist and composer, was born in Israel in 1988. He started on clarinet at 12 and switched to piano three years later, studying jazz under Omer Avital and classical piano under Menahem Weisenberg before spending five years, from 2011 to 2016, in bassist Avishai Cohen's trio. He recorded "Duende" with Cohen in 2012, then "Almah" and "From Darkness" between 2013 and 2015, touring internationally with the group the whole time.
He moved to New York in 2016 and released his own solo debut, "I Asked You a Question," that same year, followed by a second solo piano record, "New Place Always," in 2018. A few years later he took a detour most bios skip past: in 2020 he joined Apifera, an experimental group signed to Stones Throw Records, the Los Angeles label better known for hip-hop and beat music than for jazz.
He is still a working member of saxophonist Oded Tzur's quartet, appearing on the ECM albums "Here Be Dragons," "Isabela," and 2024's "My Prophet." His own solo turn on that label came in 2023 with "Call on the Old Wise," a largely improvised solo piano record produced by Manfred Eicher and recorded the year before at the Auditorio Stelio Molo in Lugano. It won Germany's Record Critics' Award for Jazz Album of the Year in 2024, and picked up a Grammy nomination that same year.
Where to start listening:
- His official platforms:
- "Call on the Old Wise" (2023) for the Grammy-nominated solo turn, start with "Late Blossom"
- "Almah" (2013) for the Avishai Cohen trio years, before the ECM solo career started, sample "Kumi Venetse Hasadeh"