Here It Is: A Tribute To Leonard Cohen [2 LP] Leonard Cohen Artist

{|Leonard Cohen|}'s musical career began in the 1960s as a singer and songwriter who, as the so-called poet of erotic despair, was widely considered to be so dour it was off-putting. By the time {|Cohen|} passed in 2016, he was a beloved artist who sold out large venues around the world, while his song Hallelujah became an unlikely standard. While there's no arguing that {|Cohen|}'s style (and its presentation) became significantly more approachable in the 1980s and '90s, the re-evaluation of his music still seems surprising when examining the full arc of his career, and it's hard to imagine that the man who made 1971's {|Songs of Love and Hate|} and 1974's {|New Skin for the Old Ceremony|} would inspire an album like 2022's {|Here It Is: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen|}. The album was coordinated by producer {|Larry Klein|}, who was a friend of the great songwriter, and he assembled a stellar band of jazz artists - {|Bill Frisell|} on guitar, {|Immanuel Wilkins|} on sax, {|Kevin Hays|} on piano, {|Scott Colley|} on bass, and {|Nate Smith|} on drums -- to back ten different singers interpreting {|Cohen|}'s songs. {|Klein|}'s approach gives {|Here It Is|} a coherent, unified sound that feels like an album rather than a collection of stray tracks. The players are all in superb form, and {|Wilkins|} and {|Frisell|} each lead an instrumental performance, pointing to {|Cohen|}'s gift for writing melodies and not just words. With the exception of {|Iggy Pop|}, whose gritty, weathered voice brings out all of the sinister undercurrents in You Want It Darker, the singers on {|Here It Is|} have contributed to honor the beauty of {|Cohen|}'s music rather than the more challenging aspects; the most unforgiving of {|Cohen|}'s songs, Avalanche, appears here as an instrumental led by {|Wilkins|}, who honors its spirit though the letter is absent. Different fans of {|Leonard Cohen|}'s work will have different opinions about the tone of {|Here It Is|} and its focus on one facet of his songbook at the expense of others. But there's no arguing the best performances here are wonderful and show off a keen understanding of these songs and what makes them work, especially {|Mavis Staples|}' yearning If It Be Your Will, {|Luciana Souza|}'s sweetly mournful Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye, and {|Gregory Porter|}'s cool but deeply felt reading of Suzanne. Even the lesser performances (most notably {|Peter Gabriel|}'s Here It Is, where he tries so hard to sound like {|Cohen|} that it's hard to tell who he is) show these artists know these are great songs, and they approach them with care and obvious admiration. {|Here It Is: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen|} doesn't tell us all that's worth knowing about {|Cohen|}'s music, and in all fairness that's clearly not his goal. Here, {|Larry Klein|} and his collaborators explore the light that seeps in through the cracks, and what it reflects is splendidly crafted and a heartfelt homage to a singular talent. ~ Mark Deming