Avishai Cohen goes it alone.(Jazz)

The pattern is by now well-established. Hot young player makes waves, gets signed, makes a good album, does not sell and gets dropped. End of story in a lot of cases. Yet there are more and more musicians who are refusing to let their recording careers end with the loss of a contract. And there are more and more musicians who see the potential advantages of running their own labels. Avishai Cohen is a case in point

"I'd reached a crossroads with Concord and [its Chick Corea-curated label Stretch Records," he says of his former indie home. "I love them, but felt that maybe the weren't the best label for my music. I felt that I needed a change. I'd been thinking about it for a while."

So Cohen, the Israeli-born bandleader and multi-instrumentalist, who came up through the vibrant scene based around the Smalls club in New York in the mid-Nineties and recorded four fine solo albums for Stretch between 1998 and 2001, thought seriously about securing distribution for any possible imprint h might create. "I actually believed would be impossible at one point." he says.

Then the opportunity arose to be handled by the highly-respected American indie Sunnyside." When I found out about that I was like OK, I'm going for it." So now Cohen's own Razdaz label is up and running and his debut release Lyla shows that his extra responsibility as an executive has had no adverse effect on his role an artist.

This new set--the first release on the label--encapulates the overall character of its predecessor Unity in its global rhythms and dynamic improvisation with strong melodic input. But it also sees Cohen move farther towards form of expression that embraces warm accessibility and sidesteps crass commerciality.

"It's a progression of things. Colors was the first step ...