By BEN JACOBSON
A few weeks after talk of Leonard Cohen's September 18 Ramat Gan performance proved not to be the done deal that the Israeli press had been touting, the timeless singer-songwriter's tour through Europe continues.
This week he stops by at the Nice Jazz Festival, which is also set to host performances by fellow classic acts like John Mayall and Joan Baez, in addition to relative newcomers like Diana Krall, Pink Martini and Rufus Wainwright.
The festival, which draws audiences numbering around 50,000 each year, takes place at the ancient Roman Cimiez Arenas and Gardens.
A middle-class Montreal Jew who became a counter-culture bohemian bard as an undergraduate student, Leonard Cohen has performed in Israel a number of times, including solidarity concerts for IDF troops, but the Israeli singer-songwriter connection doesn't end here, as Nice is also set to welcome iTunes-endorsed chanteuse Yael Naim and Tel Aviv's most famous downtown New York expatriate act, the Avishai Cohen Trio.