"This interview took place high above Broadway Avenue in Manhattan, one afternoon before Cohen played three sets through midnight with the Mark Turner Quartet. We sat talking on a broad windowsill and shared a good view of a neighbor’s balcony garden, still blooming big in September. About halfway through the conversation, Cohen pulled out his trumpet case to show first the silver mute he uses to practice on airplanes, then a series of four mouthpieces cut into heavy pendants. At concerts and in most photographs, you can see Cohen wearing one of these things, tied long around his neck, falling somewhere to midchest. Not just oddly beautiful, they are apparently good for buzzing, and are much his own invention, tools of the trade to keep his lips in shape."