Composer · DNA Productions
But line up the catalog — rain-soaked noir scores, a boozy dark-comedy soundtrack, a sitcom band fronted by a legendary Parisian pianist, and a room full of Christmas standards — and the through-line is unmistakable. lionel Cohen writes jazz the way a session player plays it: because the story needed it, not because he set out to make a jazz record.
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Ask lionel Cohen what kind of composer he is, and "jazz musician" won't be the first thing out of his mouth. He'll say film composer. TV composer. Someone who writes music that has to do a job — set a mood, sell a scene, hold a joke together — before it has to sound like anything in particular.
And yet, put his catalog on shuffle and the vocabulary keeps circling back to the same place: loosely timed brass, off-kilter piano, a rhythm section that swings even when the story is falling apart. His noir scores lean into fatalistic jazz undertones — moral ambiguity, cigarette smoke, moods built for rain on neon. His comedy work leans the other way, into swinging, tongue-in-cheek arrangements built for characters who are in over their heads. Under the moniker The Jazz Morons, he made a sitcom score real enough that people ask what show it's from. Under The Christmas Jazz Quartet, he took twelve carols everyone already knows and gave them a reason to be heard again.
He'd tell you none of it makes him a jazz musician. The catalog would disagree.
lionel would be the last person in the world to call himself a jazz musician.
Two moods, one restraint: rain-soaked noir walked back from the ledge, and jazz that knows exactly how silly it's allowed to be.
A score that sounds like it's swaying on its own two feet — "drunken" New Orleans jazz for a single-night odyssey through motel-room chaos.
A modern, lighthearted score for a fictitious sitcom about chasing dreams in L.A. — swinging horns, playful piano, Tinsel Town hustle.
Twelve holiday classics — from Jingle Bells to Silent Night — given the full jazz treatment, plus two co-written originals.
Sharp, cynical jazz-noir tension — knives in the dark, played close to the vest.
A dark, brooding noir score built on betrayal, revenge, and rainy nights that never quite clear up.
An urban neo-noir pulse — corruption, neon, and cold steel scored with a restless rhythm section.
A fatalistic, hard-boiled descent — no redemption, only echoes, and a horn section that knows it.
The players and creators who keep showing up across lionel's jazz output.
Legendary French pianist based in Paris. Brings a Parisian swing sensibility to the title themes, effortlessly blending with the irreverent spirit of The Jazz Morons.
Vocalist and co-writer on the album's two original songs, "Keep Me Out of the Cold" and "Underneath the Mistletoe" — new holiday standards in waiting.
Co-arranged three of the album's key carols — "Deck the Halls," "Joy to the World," and "Good King Wenceslas" — bringing his own touch to the classics.
Created the six-part dark comedy series The Long Long Night, for which lionel composed the full original score.
Original jazz and noir compositions available for film, TV, and commercial sync.