Local jazz prodigy Estar Cohen is a young woman who is serious about her art and analytical about how it works, but also passionate and joyful about doing what she loves.
After years of playing together and fine-tuning their sound, her band The Estar Cohen Project released its first CD, “Waiting for Dawn,” earlier this year. A release party for the album will be held 6:30-8:30 p.m. Dec. 5 at the Toledo Museum of Art, featuring a live performance by the group.
The band has performed together for over two years. Cohen, who is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Music at the University of Toledo, has spent a lifetime around music. Growing up in Sylvania as part of a family of passionate musicians (her siblings are also dedicated performers), Cohen had plenty of inspiration to follow in their footsteps.
“It wasn’t until a little bit later that I discovered jazz. It wasn’t until I was maybe a sophomore or junior in high school that a friend took me out to Murphy’s [Place], and that’s where I fell in love with the music,” she said.
As she fell in love with the form, Cohen was taken under the wing of musicians like Tad Weed, whose influence she speaks of with warm regard.
“Sometimes people don’t realize all the opportunities that are out there, or things that you can create to get your music performed, or to do them yourself,” she said.
The album is a kind of snapshot of who Cohen is as an artist at this stage of her growth — and how far the band that bears her name has come.
“When we decided that we wanted to record, we were really thinking of documenting this time in our lives, our lives as musicians. And we had been working through these songs, these pieces, through gigs,” Cohen said. “We wanted it to feel kind of diverse. I feel that we covered some different ground from song to song.”
The fact that the band is always growing and evolving — much like jazz itself — means they are in a different place now than when “Waiting for Dawn” was recorded.
“We recorded the album in March, and I think it’s a good representation of what the group was then,” Cohen said. “[But] it feels like we could go in and do those tunes again, and it would be different.”
