Shatter Imagery
It can be unnerving to meet a guy who doesn’t have a nervous bone in his body. Take Joshua Cohen. Here’s what he said when asked if he was anxious while competing in the finals of the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) Solo Bass competition in January: “I thought there was a chance I might not win.”
Turns out Cohen’s self-confidence is justified. Because he did win, defeating 10 other finalists — all of whom qualified through submitted, five-minute video applications.
Watch Cohen perform his original composition “Frostbite” in the NAMM finals in Anaheim and you’ll see a competitor who was clearly ready. He’s loose. He’s beaming smiles as the room sounds off with gasps and cheers. The 32-year-old Cohen has mastered the six-string bass, and “Frostbite” is a mesmerizing showcase of his ability to play chords, melody, bass lines and percussion all at once.
“I think of it as the same thing as solo piano,” he says.
The competition’s rubric was created by Blue Note jazz legend Ron Carter (Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock). The judging panel reads like a legends-of-modern-bass ledger including Bakithi Kumalo (Paul Simon) and Lee Sklar (Jackson Browne, James Taylor).
Other than his unworldly confidence, what else did the judges pick up on in Anaheim?
“I played an actual song,” he says. Other finalists were performing mere demonstrations of technique. Dazzling technique, but technique alone. The other difference was that Cohen “just plugged in and played.” Cohen kept it simple, just playing his bass through his amp instead of performing through an array of pedals and loops. He was the only one to do so.
“There’s something to be said for hearing a solo instrument, just the sound of that instrument,” says Cohen. “I do this to make it sound different. This is the sound of the bass.”
Born outside of Toronto, Cohen started playing bass at the age of 12. “My life changed,” the quirky musician said over coffee before the COVID-19 virus outbreak shut down virtually all performing arts. “I was no longer going to be in the NBA.” His unconventional childhood included his newly divorced mother taking him and his siblings with her to Israel where she attended rabbinical school. They lived in Cincinnati after that. He returned to Toronto and earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in music at Humber College and York University, respectively.
“Frostbite,” along with a dozen more tracks, will be released in August on his new album, Freedom.
Cohen’s name is also found on Case #A172430 of the Madison Municipal Court docket known as City of Madison vs. Joshua Cohen. His April 1 court date before Judge Daniel Koval was postponed due to coronavirus precautions. The court will hear Cohen’s appeal of a $180 citation he received last year for playing amplified bass while busking at the midweek farmers’ market downtown. Musicians can busk at will non-amplified. Opportunities for playing amplified downtown are extremely limited; there is fierce competition for $15 permits that allow it.
Arlo Guthrie and Alice’s Restaurant have nothing on Cohen when he tells the story of his unlikely battle with the law.
“I got a ticket playing amplified at the Wednesday farmers’ market. The police were good about shutting down musicians, but they would usually say, ‘I don’t want to write a ticket.
“But my wife and I bought a house in Madison and have set down roots here. And the way I see it is street performing is something I very much intend to keep doing. And I very much intend to keep playing electric bass to do it.”
“So I talked to Officer Brown; he’s a really nice guy. I was like, honestly, can you just give me a ticket because I need to fight this? This would be really good if I can get this in front of a judge.”
Officer Brown reluctantly wrote Cohen up. “Here’s your piece of paper,” he said, handing over the citation to Cohen.
Cohen is approaching his eventual day in court with the same focus and determination as he approaches his instrument. Civil rights attorney Jeff Scott Olson will represent him. Olson and Cohen will argue that the amplification ban is not “content neutral,” meaning that it discriminates between forms of art. Think of music as speech, and that will help you see their point. They want the law to see music the same way as it sees speech. From Cohen’s point of view, prohibiting an amplified musical expression is no different from randomly forbidding people to sing in the key of C.
Olson is an accomplished attorney. However no one will envy Judge Koval when Cohen takes the stand at the trial. Justice is blind. But Cohen will sure as hell do his best to argue it’s not deaf, too.
