Kunstencentrum Vooruit, Gent, België

Avishai Cohen, the gifted double-bassist and composer, has been a key Chick Corea sideman, and his lyrical writing and hynotic improvising at times suggested a more Middle Eastern and Iberian-influenced EST. But Cohen has an Achilles heel, which he first revealed in singing the nursery-rhyme-like Simple Melody as a duet with his bass guitar on 2003’s Lyla album, and which appears to have walked all over his otherwise good sense here. Singing with an artless innocence is sometimes a great idea, but leaves lyrics very exposed, and Cohen’s English lyrics (he also sings in Hebrew and the Judaeo-Spanish Ladino, perfectly convincingly) are wincingly threadbare for an artist of his imagination. Typically, the tunes have a clapping, sensuous grace. Young piano star Shai Maestro supports the group and sometimes soars away from it, while Cohen’s old oud partner, Amos Hoffman, furnishes north African and Spanish-guitar effects, and harmony-singer Karen Malka warmly camouflages Cohen’s vocals. But though the leader’s bass-playing provides the beautifully struck, story-shaped solos that built his reputation, and the Hebrew and Ladino pieces have their atmospheric moments, those English-language songs amount to pretty big hurdles to cross.