A native of Los Angeles, bassist Greg Cohen has been playing in various acclaimed music groups since the '60s. He is perhaps best known for his work with John Zorn

John Zorn

John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...

's Masada quartet

Masada (band)

Masada is a musical group with rotating personnel led by American saxophonist and composer John Zorn since the early 1990s.Masada is as much a "songbook" as a group, comprising more than 500 relatively brief compositions...

; more recently he has been touring with Ornette Coleman

Ornette Coleman

Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....

, and performed on Coleman's much-praised Sound Grammar

Sound Grammar

Sound Grammar is an album by jazz saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman, recorded live in Ludwigshafen, Germany, on 14 October 2005. The album was produced by Ornette Coleman and Michaela Deiss, and released on Coleman's new Sound Grammar label. It is his first new album in almost a decade,...

album.

Cohen's experience reaches far beyond any one style or genre. He has worked with musicians such as Tom Waits

Tom Waits

Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...

, David Byrne

David Byrne (musician)

David Byrne is a musician and artist, best known as a founding member and principal songwriter of the American new wave band Talking Heads, which was active between 1975 and 1991. Since then, Byrne has released his own solo recordings and worked with various media including film, photography,...

, and Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...

. His bass playing credits include work with artists such as Dagmar Krause

Dagmar Krause

Dagmar Krause is a German singer, best known for her work with avant-rock groups like Slapp Happy, Henry Cow and Art Bears. She is also noted for her coverage of songs by Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler...

, David Sanborn

David Sanborn

David Sanborn is an American alto saxophonist. Though Sanborn has worked in many genres, his solo recordings typically blend jazz with instrumental pop and R&B. He released his first solo album Taking Off in 1975, but has been playing the saxophone since before he was in high school...

, Susana Baca

Susana Baca

Susana Esther Baca de la Colina is a prominent Peruvian singer-songwriter; two-times Latin Grammy Award winner. She has been a key figure in the revival of Afro-Peruvian music within Peru....

, Gal Costa

Gal Costa

Gal Costa is a Brazilian singer of popular music.-Early life:...

, Marisa Monte

Marisa Monte

Marisa de Azevedo Monte is a Brazilian popular singer. As of 2011, she has sold 10 million albums worldwide.- Biography :...

, Laurie Anderson

Laurie Anderson

Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson is an American experimental performance artist, composer and musician who plays violin and keyboards and sings in a variety of experimental music and art rock styles. Initially trained as a sculptor, Anderson did her first performance-art piece in the late 1960s...

, Willie Nelson

Willie Nelson

Willie Hugh Nelson is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie , combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust , made Nelson one of the most recognized...

, Bill Frisell

Bill Frisell

William Richard "Bill" Frisell is an American guitarist and composer.One of the leading guitarists in jazz since the late 1980s, Frisell's eclectic music touches on progressive folk, classical music, country music, noise and more...

, Norah Jones

Norah Jones

Norah Jones is an American singer-songwriter and occasional actress.In 2002, she launched her solo music career with the release of the commercially successful and critically acclaimed album Come Away With Me, which was certified a diamond album in 2002, selling over 20 million copies...

, Dave Douglas

Dave Douglas (trumpeter)

Dave Douglas is an American jazz trumpeter and composer whose music derives from many non-jazz musical styles, including classical music, folk music from European countries and Klezmer. He has been a member of the experimental big band Orange Then Blue...

, Misha Mengelberg

Misha Mengelberg

Misha Mengelberg is a Dutch jazz pianist and composer. He won the Gaudeamus International Composers Award in 1961.-Biography:...

, Tricky

Tricky

Tricky is an English musician and actor. As a producer and a musician, he is noted for a dark, rich and layered sound and a whispering sprechgesang lyrical style. Culturally, Tricky encourages an intertwining of societies, particularly in his musical fusion of rock and hip hop, high art and pop...

, Jesse Harris

Jesse Harris

Jesse Harris is a Grammy Award winning American singer-songwriter. He has collaborated with several musical artists including Norah Jones, Melody Gardot, Madeleine Peyroux, Nikki Yanofsky, and Lizz Wright.-Early life and education:...

, Keith Richards

Keith Richards

Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...

 and Charlie Watts

Charlie Watts

Charles Robert "Charlie" Watts is an English drummer, best known as a member of The Rolling Stones. He is also the leader of a jazz band, a record producer, commercial artist, and horse breeder.-Early life:...

, Joey Baron

Joey Baron

Joey Baron is an American avant-garde jazz drummer probably best known for his work with Bill Frisell, Stan Getz, Steve Kuhn, and John Zorn...

, Donovan

Donovan

Donovan Donovan Donovan (born Donovan Philips Leitch (born 10 May 1946) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. Emerging from the British folk scene, he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music...

, Crystal Gayle

Crystal Gayle

Crystal Gayle is an American country music singer best known for her 1977 country-pop hit, "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue". An award-winning singer, she accumulated 18 number one country hits during the 1970s and 1980s...

, Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, Alan Watts

Alan Watts

Alan Wilson Watts was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and popularizer of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience. Born in Chislehurst, he moved to the United States in 1938 and began Zen training in New York...

, Lee Konitz

Lee Konitz

Lee Konitz is an American jazz composer and alto saxophonist born in Chicago, Illinois.Generally considered one of the driving forces of Cool Jazz, Konitz has also performed successfully in bebop and avant-garde settings...

, Richie Havens

Richie Havens

Richard P. "Richie" Havens is an African American folk singer and guitarist. He is best known for his intense, rhythmic guitar style , soulful covers of pop and folk songs, and his opening performance at the 1969 Woodstock Festival.-Career:Born in Brooklyn, Havens was the eldest of nine children...

, Dino Saluzzi

Dino Saluzzi

Timoteo "Dino" Saluzzi is an Argentine musician.The son of popular carpero composer and instrumentalist Cayetano Saluzzi, Dino played the bandoneón since his childhood...

, Lou Reed

Lou Reed

Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...

, Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Evelyn Faithfull is an award-winning English singer, songwriter and actress whose career has spanned five decades....

, Odetta

Odetta

Odetta Holmes, known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals...

, Fiona Apple

Fiona Apple

Fiona Apple McAfee Maggart is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. Apple met international acclaim for her 1996 debut album, Tidal, which was a critical and commercial success...

, Danny Barker

Danny Barker

Danny Barker , born Daniel Moses Barker, was a jazz banjoist, singer, guitarist, songwriter, ukelele player and author from New Orleans, founder of the locally famous Fairview Baptist Church Marching Band...

, Tim Sparks

Tim Sparks

Tim Sparks is an American acoustic guitar player, singer, arranger and composer.- Biography:Raised in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, he was given his first guitar when a bout of encephalitis kept him out of school for a year...

, and Antony and the Johnsons

Antony and the Johnsons

Antony and the Johnsons is a music group presenting the work of Antony Hegarty and his collaborators.-Career:British experimental musician David Tibet of Current 93 heard a demo and offered to release Antony's music through his Durtro label. The debut album, Antony and the Johnsons, was released...

.

He has also often played traditional jazz, including work with Ken Peplowski

Ken Peplowski

Ken Peplowski is a jazz clarinetist born in Cleveland, Ohio, known primarily for playing in the swing music idiom. He is sometimes compared to Benny Goodman in terms of tone and virtuosity...

, Kenny Davern

Kenny Davern

Kenny Davern , born John Kenneth Davern, was one of the premier jazz clarinetists of his generation.-Biography:He was born in Huntington, Long Island to a family of mixed Jewish and Irish-Catholic ancestry...

, Marty Grosz

Marty Grosz

Martin Oliver "Marty" Grosz is an American jazz guitarist, banjoist, vocalist and composer born in Berlin, Germany, perhaps most notable for his work with Bob Wilber, performing with and doing arrangements for him. Grosz has also been involved in projects involving Kenny Davern, Dick Sudhalter and...

 and the filmmaker/clarinettist Woody Allen

Woody Allen

Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...

.

Cohen has composed for the Lincoln Center Theater, among others, and collaborated on film score arrangements for such movies as Ed Wood and Fried Green Tomatoes.

In August/September 2006 he was musical director of the Century of Song series at the German arts festival RuhrTriennale

Ruhrtriennale

The Ruhrtriennale is an annual music and arts festival in the northwestern area of Germany which runs between mid-August and mid-October. It was founded in 2002 by the government of North Rhine-Westphalia with Gerard Mortier, the impresario and former artistic director of the Salzburg Festival, as...

. He invited songwriters and performers such as David Byrne

David Byrne (musician)

David Byrne is a musician and artist, best known as a founding member and principal songwriter of the American new wave band Talking Heads, which was active between 1975 and 1991. Since then, Byrne has released his own solo recordings and worked with various media including film, photography,...

, Holly Cole

Holly Cole

Holly Cole is a Canadian jazz singer, particularly popular in Canada and Japan for both her versatile and distinctive voice, along with her adventurous repertoire, which spans such divergent genres as show tunes, rock, and country music.-Holly Cole Trio:In 1983, Cole travelled to Toronto to seek a...

 and Laurie Anderson

Laurie Anderson

Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson is an American experimental performance artist, composer and musician who plays violin and keyboards and sings in a variety of experimental music and art rock styles. Initially trained as a sculptor, Anderson did her first performance-art piece in the late 1960s...

.

Greg Cohen is a regular member of Woody Allen and his New Orleans Jazz Band, which plays every Monday evening at Manhattan's Carlyle Hotel

Carlyle Hotel

The Carlyle Hotel, known formally as The Carlyle, is a combination luxury and residential hotel located at 35 East 76th Street on the northeast corner of Madison Avenue, in the Upper East Side area of New York City...

. He appears in the documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 Wild Man Blues

Wild Man Blues

Wild Man Blues is a 1998 documentary film directed by Barbara Kopple, about the musical avocation of actor/director/comic Woody Allen. The film takes its name from a jazz composition sometimes attributed to Jelly Roll Morton and sometimes to Louis Armstrong and recorded by both...

(directed by Barbara Kopple

Barbara Kopple

Barbara Kopple is an American film director, primarily known for her work in documentary film.-Biography:She grew up in Scarsdale, New York, the daughter of a textile executive and studied psychology at Northeastern University, after which she worked with the Maysles Brothers.Kopple has won two...

).
Cohen appears in Robert Altman's "Short Cuts" (1993).

Cohen is a bass professor at the Jazz Institute Berlin.

Select discography

With Masada

Masada (band)

Masada is a musical group with rotating personnel led by American saxophonist and composer John Zorn since the early 1990s.Masada is as much a "songbook" as a group, comprising more than 500 relatively brief compositions...

• Masada: Alef
  Masada: Alef
  Masada: Alef, also known as Masada 1, is a 1994 album by American jazz composer and saxophonist John Zorn featuring the Masada Quartet performing compositions inspired by Zorn's examination of Jewish culture...
  
  (1994; DIW)
• Masada: Beit
  Masada: Beit
  Masada: Beit, also known as Masada 2, is a 1995 album by American jazz composer and saxophonist John Zorn. It is the second album of Masada recordings.-Reception:...
  
  (1994; DIW)
• Masada: Gimel
  Masada: Gimel
  Masada: Gimel, also known as Masada 3, is a 1995 album by American composer and saxophonist John Zorn released on the Japanese DIW label....
  
  (1994; DIW)
• Masada: Dalet
  Masada: Dalet
  Masada: Dalet, also known as Masada 4, is a 1995 album by American composer and saxophonist John Zorn. It is the fourth album of Masada recordings. The original pressing of this album was never available for retail sale as it was given away by DIW in exchange of the proof of buying the first three...
  
  (1994; DIW)
• Bar Kokhba
  Bar Kokhba (album)
  Bar Kokhba is a double album by John Zorn, recorded between 1994 and 1996. It features music from Zorn's Masada project, rearranged for small ensembles.-Reception:...
  
  (1994–96; Tzadik)
• Masada: Hei
  Masada: Hei
  Masada: Hei, also known as Masada 5, is a 1995 album by American composer and saxophonist John Zorn. It is the fifth album of Masada recordings.-Reception:...
  
  (1995; DIW)
• Masada: Vav
  Masada: Vav
  -Track listing:#"Debir" – 8:02#"Shebuah" – 8:09#"Mikreh" – 3:57#"Tiferet" – 4:05#"Nevalah" – 2:10#"Miktav" – 9:40#"Nashon" – 8:37#"Avelut" – 7:31#"Beer Sheba" – 8:50...
  
  (1995; DIW)
• Masada: Zayin
  Masada: Zayin
  -Track listing:# "Shevet" – 7:58# "Hath-Arob" – 3:24# "Mahshav" – 6:16# "Shamor" – 5:09# "Bacharach" – 1:24# "Otoit" – 3:27# "Nevuah" – 8:22# "Kedem" – 9:55# "Zemer" – 2:14# "Evel" – 5:35# "Tekufah" – 6:59...
  
  (1996; DIW)
• Masada: Het
  Masada: Het
  Masada: Het, also known as Masaday 8, is a 1997 album by American composer and saxophonist John Zorn released on the Japanese DIW label...
  
  (1996; DIW)
• Masada: Tet
  Masada: Tet
  - Track listing :# "Chayah" – 9:33# "Karet" – 1:56# "Moshav" – 6:50# "Leshem" – 4:36# "Kochot" – 5:15# "Meholalot" – 8:50# "Kedushah" – 6:18# "Ner Tamid" – 4:07# "Acharei Mot" – 9:04# "Jachin" – 5:37* Recorded at Avatar, New York City on April 21, 1997...
  
  (1997; DIW)
• Masada: Yod
  Masada: Yod
  Masada: Yod, also known as Masada 10, is a 1998 album by American composer and saxophonist John Zorn released on the Japanese DIW label. It is the tenth album of Masada recordings.-Reception:...
  
  (1997; DIW)
• First Live 1993
  First Live 1993
  First Live 1993 is a live album by John Zorn's Masada documenting their premier live appearance at the Knitting Factory in September, 1993.-Reception:...
  
  (2002; Tzadik)
• Live in Jerusalem 1994
  Live in Jerusalem 1994
  - Track listing :* Disc one# "Piram" - 9:52# "Bith Aneth" - 11:57# "Lachish" - 3:35# "Peliyot" - 7:11# "Hadasha" - 10:53# "Ravayah" - 3:35# "Zebdi" - 1:53# "Tirzah" - 8:07# "Hekhal" - 3:31* Disc two# "Kanah" - 6:12# "Shilhim" - 2:39...
  
  (1997; Tzadik)
• Live in Taipei 1995
  Live in Taipei 1995
  Live in Taipei is a double live album by John Zorn's Masada recorded at the Crown Theatre in Taiwan's capital city Taipei.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Joclyn Layne awarded the album 3½ stars stating "With so many exceptional recordings available of the Masada quartet, this one may be...
  
  (1997; Tzadik)
• The Circle Maker
  The Circle Maker
  The Circle Maker is a double album by John Zorn featuring Zorn's Masada compositions performed by the Masada String Trio and the Bar Kokhba Sextet .- Track listing :* Disc One: Issachar...
  
  (1998; Tzadik)
• Live in Middleheim 1999
  Live in Middleheim 1999
  -Track listing:# "Nevuah" – 9:48# "Sippur" – 3:20# "Hath-Arob" – 5:20# "Kedushah" – 6:53# "Ne’eman" – 13:05# "Karet" – 2:03# "Kochot" – 4:57# "Piram" – 12:13# "Paran" – 6:00# "Ashnah" – 7:19# "Tahah" – 7:26*Recorded live in Antwerp on August 15, 1999...
  
  (1999; Tzadik)
• Live in Sevilla 2000
  Live in Sevilla 2000
  -Track listing:# "Ne’eman" – 13:00# "Katzatz" – 5:09# "Hadasha" – 11:11# "Beeroth" – 7:30# "Yoreh" – 10:09# "Hazor" – 6:47# "Nashon" – 10:11# "Lakom" – 5:24# "Bith Aneth" – 9:35*Recorded live in Seville, Spain on July 25, 2000-Personnel:...
  
  (2000; Tzadik)
• Live at Tonic 2001
  Live at Tonic 2001
  - Track listing :* Disc one# "Intro" - 1:23# "Karaim" - 17:50# "Ner Tamid" - 5:07# "Acharei Mot" - 11:07# "Kisofim" - 7:12# "Jachin" - 6:30# "Malkhut" - 4:52# "Nashim" - 6:38* Disc two# "Intro" - 0:30# "Lilin" - 14:43# "Khebar" - 5:59...
  
  (2001; Tzadik)

With Kenny Davern

Kenny Davern

Kenny Davern , born John Kenneth Davern, was one of the premier jazz clarinetists of his generation.-Biography:He was born in Huntington, Long Island to a family of mixed Jewish and Irish-Catholic ancestry...

 and Ken Peplowski

Ken Peplowski

Ken Peplowski is a jazz clarinetist born in Cleveland, Ohio, known primarily for playing in the swing music idiom. He is sometimes compared to Benny Goodman in terms of tone and virtuosity...

• The Jazz KENnection
  The Jazz KENnection
  The Jazz KENnection is a 2001 release of the late clarinetist Kenny Davern and clarinetist and saxophonist Ken Peplowski from Arbors Records...
  
  (Arbors Records
  Arbors Records
  Arbors Records is an independent American jazz record label based in Clearwater, Florida. It was founded by the family team of Mat and Rachel Domber in 1989, initially devoted to the recordings of their friend Rick Fay.-History:...
  
  )

With Dave Douglas

Dave Douglas (trumpeter)

Dave Douglas is an American jazz trumpeter and composer whose music derives from many non-jazz musical styles, including classical music, folk music from European countries and Klezmer. He has been a member of the experimental big band Orange Then Blue...

• Charms of the Night Sky
  Charms of the Night Sky
  Charms of the Night Sky is the tenth album by trumpeter Dave Douglas. It was released on the German Winter & Winter label in 1998 and features performances by Douglas, Greg Cohen, Mark Feldman and Guy Klucevsek.-Reception:...
  
  

appears on Tom Waits

Tom Waits

Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...

 albums

• Heartattack and Vine
  Heartattack and Vine
  Heartattack and Vine was Tom Waits' last album on the Asylum label, released in September 1980.Bruce Springsteen covered "Jersey Girl" as part of his live shows throughout the 1980s."On the Nickel" was recorded for the Ralph Waite film of the same name....
  
  
• Swordfishtrombones
  Swordfishtrombones
  Swordfishtrombones is an album by American singer-songwriter Tom Waits, released in September 1983. It was the first album that Waits produced himself....
  
  
• Rain Dogs
  Rain Dogs
  Rain Dogs is the 9th album by American singer-songwriter Tom Waits, released in August 1985 on Island Records. A loose concept album about "the urban dispossessed" of New York City, Rain Dogs is generally considered the middle album of a trilogy that includes Swordfishtrombones and Franks Wild...
  
  
• Franks Wild Years
  Franks Wild Years
  Franks Wild Years is an album by Tom Waits, released 1987 on Island Records. Subtitled "Un Operachi Romantico in Two Acts", the album contains songs written by Waits and collaborators for a play of the same name...
  
  
• The Black Rider
  The Black Rider (album)
  The Black Rider is an album by Tom Waits, released in 1993 on Island Records. The album contains studio versions of songs Waits wrote for the play The Black Rider, directed by Robert Wilson and co-written by William S. Burroughs...
  
  
• Mule Variations
  Mule Variations
  -Related promo CD:As a promotional limited offer, an EP titled Hold On was later released with two of the tracks from the Mule Variations album plus two previously unreleased tracks...
  
  
• Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards
  Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards
  Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards is a limited edition three CD set by Tom Waits, released by the ANTI- label on November 17, 2006 in Europe and on November 21, 2006 in the United States.The set is a collection of 24 rare and 30 brand new songs...