Gilad Atzmon's Blog, page 7
March 12, 2015
Charlie Parker had an intoxicating freedom
By Ivan Hewett, Jazz Critic
Jazz is full of shooting stars, great talents that dazzled briefly and burned themselves out too young. None burned so intensely as Charlie Parker, the great saxophonist and composer, who died 60 years ago (on March 12, 1955) from health problems brought on by a life-time of drink and drugs. In a career of barely 20 years he redefined the art of jazz, creating alongside a few other pioneers that hard, driving, feverishly exciting sound known as bebop.
That’s a great achievement, but it might appear to lock Parker, who died at the age of 34, firmly into the past. After all, we’re now well into the era of ‘post-bop’, that conveniently vague phrase that draws a veil over jazz’s current stylistic confusion. And yet Parker, of all the beboppers, is the one who seems most vividly alive. His nickname “Bird” testifies to the intoxicating freedom of his melodies, and the darting, soaring quality of his mind. Everywhere one looks in jazz, one sees his legacy being re-interpreted, often by musicians who were born decades after Bird died.
That reinterpretation takes many forms, but one thing these younger musicians agree on is that pious recreation just won’t do. They want to honour him at a deeper level, and that means emulating the other things that made Parker great. His sheer hard work, for one. One of the many musicians who’ve produced Parker-based albums in recent years is Gilad Atzmon, the fiery Israel-born saxophonist. He paid homage to the controversial recording Parker made late in his career called Bird with Strings, where the sharp, clean sound of the saxophonist is cushioned by string arrangements.
Atzmon discovered Parker’s music when he was 17. “I used to listen to all the usual stuff, when I was a teenager – Pink Floyd, Saturday Night Fever. We had a jazz programme late at night, I used to listen to it, because it was boring enough to let me fall asleep.” Then one day along came a number from Bird with Strings. “Well, that just knocked me down. I got completely fascinated with his music, and I decided to transcribe some pieces. I remember Night in Tunisia was the first. I had been given a cassette-recorder for my bar mitzvah, and I played the cassette of the piece over and over. It took me about eight hours, and at the end there was this funny smell. I realised the cassette had melted.”
Charlie Parker - After You've Gone (1946) on MUZU.TV.
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away in Beckenham, a teenage saxophonist named Django Bates had been bitten by the same bug. “Charlie Parker’s music is like my mother tongue," he says, “my Dad played his records all the time at home. I remember me and a friend transcribing the solos from a bunch of 78s. We would pick up the needle, put it down, pick it up, put it down. We did damage to the records, and I’m sure we did damage to our brains too.” The damage couldn’t have been great. Bates has now become one of Britain’s leading jaz pianists, band-leaders and composers, and his versions of Parker classics on his recent album Belovèd Bird are marvels of imaginative recreation.
The obsession Parker’s music engendered in two such different musicians testifies to its enticing mystery, the sense it gives of something wonderful lying just out of reach. Ask these musicians what the essence of that thing is and they point to surprisingly different things. “It’s the twists and turns, the humour, the surprising intervals. They were infinitely inspiring to me, and still are,” says Bates.
Charlie Parker MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVE
Gilad Atzmon, with typical pugnaciousness, points to a different quality of Parker’s music, one that’s become unmentionable in today’s culture, which is so squeamish about "gendered" traits in the arts. “For me bebop was the most libidinal music. It’s absolutely filled with testosterone, it’s very manly. Thinking about the whole bebop movement, it’s strikes me there was not a single woman in that generation. Just to acquire the command of that language was extraordinarily tough, it was like putting yourself in a military regime. And the reason was that the speed and complication of the music was unbelievable, it was right at the edge of what was possible.”
That going to extremes engenders a joy (the joyful quality of Bird’s music is one thing everybody agrees on). But it has a melancholy aftertaste, for a reason Bates makes clear. “There a wonderful film of Parker and Coleman Hawkins miming to playback, which shows two styles together. You can see that when Bird begins he’s playing two notes for every one of Hawkins’s. It’s the speed of thought and execution that’s amazing, but it’s a problem when he plays in a dance hall, as he does on Bird is Free. It’s verging on being music without pulse, and that shows the parting of the ways, when jazz stopped being entertainment and became art. You can imagine the crowd saying “Hang on, we can’t dance to this any more.”
Bird's obsessive refining of his art, his determination to find something he could "hear in his head but not yet play," might remind us of other tormented avant-gardistes like Jackson Pollock. But that overlooks the other side of Parker, the one that revered tradition. That’s the side that appeals to Joe Lovano, the great American saxophonist who recently produced a Parker-based album entitled Bird Songs with his US Five quintet. “I learned to play saxophone with my Dad, and he and all the players around him were Parker freaks. When I started to play professionally it was Parker’s tunes I began with. Some of the younger cats like to say, 'I just want to play my music’, but I say you can do that better if you know what all the previous generations did. And some people want to live in that library and try to tell someone else’s story, but you have to tell your own story. With the players I love there’s that special deep sound, which isn’t just a tone on the instrument, it’s a whole approach which comes out of deep study joined with a desire to be creative and free.”
It’s the classic quality of Parker that makes him appealing to many other jazz musicians. Rudresh Mahanthappa, an American saxophonist of Indian parentage, is about to release a Parker-inspired album entitled Bird Calls. This embeds fragments of Parker numbers in his own very distinctive language, which is strongly influenced by South Indian music. He too experienced a moment of revelation as a teenager. “The first Charlie Parker number I heard was called Blue Bird. I was blown away by the propulsion, the charisma, and the joyful spirit of it. Also the stellar saxophone playing, which technically is on the highest level.
"There was a completeness to it, which I’ve spent my whole life trying to emulate – which is nothing to do with imitation, because my style is very different. It has the balanced quality of all the great art that I really love. It’s as much intellectual as it is soulful, it speaks to sorrow and it speaks to joy, with a undertone of compassionate humour. There’s something so human about what Charlie Parker does.”
Django Bates’s Beloved Bird is released on Lost Marble. Joe Lovano’s Bird Songs is released on Blue Note. Gilad Atzmon’s In Loving Memory of America is released on Enja. Rudresh Mahanthappa’s Bird Calls is released on ACT.
To Call A Spade A Spade - Noel Gallagher On Jazz
This is a painful observation.
March 11, 2015
All The Truth About AZZ-in a single snapshot
By Gilad Atzmon
In the ‘Zionist’ Jewish State, The United Arab Party is becoming a major political force and is destined to become the third or fourth biggest political party in the next Knesset. I was amused to find out that at the same time, J-BIG – Jews for Boycott Of Israeli Goods, practices the most horrid form of Jewish racial exclusivism.
In the following Facebook exchange Muslim convert Laura Macdonald asks whether she can join the Jewish activist club. The answer is immediate and unequivocal: NO, Goyim are not welcome into our Jews only ranks (but you can ‘like’ us).
The meaning is simple and devastating. The so called ‘anti’ Zionist ‘progressive’ political movement is way more racist and exclusivist than the Zionist State which it claims to oppose.
The Jewish anti Zionists that strive so hard to convey the image of Jewish ethics and universalism, are in fact the epitome and the manifestation of everything we oppose in Jewish tribalism, Zionism and racial exclusivity.
Walid Darab: Gilad Atzmon On Netanyahu’s Speech
Gilad Atzmon is an Israeli-born British jazz saxophonist, novelist, political activist and writer. Atzmon joins us this episode to share his thoughts on Netanyahu’s speech to Congress last week. Topics & Links Mentioned in this Episode Include: Reverse the Concert Cancellation of the Gilad Atzmon & The OHE in Manchester RNCM.
March 10, 2015
The Jazzmann 4 Stars Review
Reviewed by: Ian Mann
“The Whistle Blower” maintains the high standard established by previous OHE releases as it continues to explore Atzmon's themes of love, loss and belonging.Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble“The Whistle Blower”Album Launch at The Pizza Express Jazz Club - March 11th-14th
(Fanfare Jazz FJ1501)
The multi talented Gilad Atzmon has been a regular presence on the Jazzmann web pages, appearing as an instrumentalist, composer, author and political activist. All these aspects of his work are interlinked but it’s primarily his activities as a musician that interest us most as the Jazzmann.
Born in Israel but based in the UK for more than twenty years Atzmon is best known as a saxophonist although he also plays clarinet, accordion and guitar and occasionally sings. As a leader he has fronted his regular working band The Orient House Ensemble since the late 1990s and “The Whistle Blower” represents the eighth album by this prolific unit. Elsewhere Atzmon has been involved in productive creative liaisons with Sarah Gillespie, Robert Wyatt, Tango Siempre and Norman Watt- Roy. As a sideman he famously works alongside bassist Watt-Roy as a member of the Blockheads and he has guested on albums by guitarist Nicolas Meier, bassist Shez Raja and many others. Most recently, and perhaps most famously, he has featured as the saxophonist on the new Pink Floyd album “The Endless River”. Other high profile session dates have included work with Paul McCartney, Sinead O’Connor, Robbie Williams and The Waterboys. Atzmon is also in high demand as a producer with albums by Gillespie and percussionist Adriano Adewale ranking among my personal favourites.
“The Whistle Blower” introduces a new version of the Orient House Ensemble with Chris Higginbottom taking over the drum chair from Eddie Hick, who had in turn followed Asaf Sirkis and Enzo Zirilli. Long serving member Yaron Savi remains on both acoustic and electric bass and co-founder Frank Harrison features on piano and a range of keyboards. On this album all four group members also sing.
“The Whistle Blower” is the first release on Atzmon’s own Fanfare record label. The title seems particularly apt, it works in the musical sense that Atzmon is a player of multiple reed instruments but there’s also the political dimension of the phrase. As an avowed anti Zionist and as somebody who has spoken out strongly against the activities of the Israeli government, particularly with regard to Palestine and Gaza, the “whistle blowing” Atzmon is effectively an exile from his own country. Despite living and working in England for over twenty years he still sees British culture through the eyes of an “outsider” despite making himself very much at home here.
Atzmon is a multi faceted, sometimes self-contradictory figure. “The Whistle Blower” continues to explore many of the themes that run through previous OHE albums such as “Nostalgico”, “Exile” and “Refuge” as he continues to examine the role of music in his personal and political life. He’s a multi cultural figure who disdains political correctness, a political agitator with an intense romantic nostalgia not only for his homeland but also for an idealised jazz history, a fiercely intelligent thinker with an earthy, some would say crude, sense of humour. His character is a fascinating mix of apparent opposites that creates an energy which he channels into his albums and into his exciting and often unpredictable live performances. For all the angst Atzmon is a brilliant showman, something of a dying breed in contemporary jazz. Even I’m prepared to admit that the music sometimes takes itself much too seriously.
Atzmon’s notes on the packaging for the new album abound with provocative pronouncements but his belief in the power of music as the instrument of truth shines through. Of the eight pieces on the record he states; “these compositions are about love, nostalgia, devotion and simplicity”.
It begins with “Gaza Mon Amour” which fuses aspects of Arabic folk music with the spiritual jazz of John Coltrane. Its composer describes it as “ a combination of great bebop artistry and Middle Eastern roots in a sophisticated, sometimes ironical manner influenced by Coltrane’s powerful approach to the sax”. Atzmon deploys a variety of reeds and the opening stages will sound decidedly Middle Eastern to most West European and American ears. Yet there’s an authentic Coltrane style intensity to the blistering sax solo at the heart of the piece that wholly justifies and vindicates Atzmon’s description. He receives terrific support from his well drilled band with the faithful Harrison conjuring up a variety of piano sounds and the super flexible team of Stavi and Higginbottom handling the rhythmic twists and turns with panache. It’s a typically attention grabbing opener and a piece that must be wildly exciting in the live environment.
Atzmon has spoken of “the nostalgic Gilad, not sad but lamenting”. Indeed many of these pieces could be said to constitute “laments”. There’s a real sense of yearning within the lush balladry of “Forever” with its keening saxophone and lyrical piano embellished by Higginbottom’s assured cymbal flourishes.
Harrison deploys a string synthesiser to good effect on “The Romantic Church” as Atzmon recreates something of the atmosphere of his Charlie Parker with Strings inspired recording “In Loving Memory of America”. The string sounds underscore Atzmon’s first alto solo before the versatile keyboard player switches to lyrical acoustic piano for a short solo before linking up well with his leader as Atzmon’s sax comes to the fore once more. “I am Old Fashioned, an Honorary Knight of the Romantic Church” declares Atzmon in his sleeve notes.
At a little over eleven minutes “Let Us Pray” is the lengthiest track on the album, an even deeper excursion into the spiritual style jazz of John Coltrane. Atzmon features on soprano, musing at considerable length above a flexible modal style rhythmic backdrop and gradually ratcheting up the tension as the piece proceeds. At his most impassioned his playing is more than a match for that of one of his primary influences. Harrison, on piano, then constructs an excellent gospel flavoured solo, a towering musical edifice that emphasises his own considerable abilities.
The relatively brief “The Song” is another lament, a further evocation of the bitter sweet nostalgia that imbues much of this album. Atzmon features on accordion but the featured soloist is Stavi with a highly melodic but deeply resonant double bass solo.
Also relatively brief “To Be Free” initially maintains the wistful, nostalgic mood, this time courtesy of the plaintive wail of Atzmon’s soprano and the sensitive accompaniment of the band. There’s also a knotty passage of piano from Harrison on a piece that subsequently toys with the crumbling structures of free jazz, a development that lends a double meaning to the title.
“For Moana” is Atzmon’s musical love letter to the charms of the late Italian TV personality and one time porn star Moana Pozzi who died in 1994 aged just 33. “My Vintage Romantic Heroine” is Atzmon’s description of a controversial figure who, back in the day, slept with many of Italy’s leading political figures. Even if the subject of its devotion remains provocative the tune itself is a beautiful and richly emotive love song with a genuine sense of romance and yearning courtesy of the combination of Atzmon’s unexpectedly tender sax and Harrison’s gently flowing piano plus the sympathetic support of Stavi and Higginbottom.
With the exception of the powerful opener and the more animated parts of “Let Us Pray” the prevailing mood of the album thus far has been reflective and nostalgic. However humour has long been part of Atzmon’s music and especially his live shows. However a number of pieces on previous albums have highlighted “the funny Gilad” but this is the first time that this role has been fulfilled by the title track. “The Whistle Blower” extends the idea of the metaphor of the wolf whistles that used to be directed at Moana Pozzi. Featuring the voices of all the members of the OHE plus the vocals of guests Tali Atzmon (Gilad’s wife) and Antonio Feola the piece is a gloriously daft slice of cabaret style warbling complete with wolf whistles and Gilad on accordion.
Tagged on at the end of the record the tune represents a little light relief and I assume that it will also represent the closing item of the quartet’s live shows on their current tour.
“The Whistle Blower” maintains the high standard established by previous OHE releases as it continues to explore Atzmon’s themes of love, loss and belonging. Expertly recorded by a top notch engineering team the mix ensures that all four musicians sound good throughout, something we’ve come to expect from this highly skilled and tightly knit ensemble. I liked the contribution of new boy Chris Higginbottom, particularly his distinctive cymbal work.
The OHE are currently touring the UK and Europe and begin a four night residency at London’s Pizza Express Jazz Club tomorrow night (11th March 2015). Remaining tour dates as follows;
Wednesday 11th March 2015 Album Launch at The Pizza Express Jazz Club, London http://www.pizzaexpresslive.com/
Thursday 12th March 2015 Album Launch at The Pizza Express Jazz Club, London http://www.pizzaexpresslive.com/
Friday 13th March 2015 Album Launch at The Pizza Express Jazz Club, London http://www.pizzaexpresslive.com/
Saturday 14th March 2015 Album Launch at The Pizza Express Jazz Club, London http://www.pizzaexpresslive.com/
Saturday 28th Paris
Tuesday 31st March 2015 The Brook Theatre, Chatham http://tickets.medway.gov.uk/thebrooktheatre.aspx
Wednesday 1st April 2015 The Y Theatre, Leicester, http://www.leicesterymca.co.uk/y-theatre.php
Saturday 4th April 2015 606 Jazz Club, London http://www.606club.co.uk
Sunday 5th April 2015 Colchester Arts Centre, Colchester http://www.colchesterartscentre.com/
Monday 6th April, Prague CZ Repablique (TBC)
Tuesday 7th April A-Train, Berlin, Germanyhttp://www.a-trane.de/
Thursday 9th April Saarwellingen, Germany
Friday 10th Freiburg, Germany
Saturday 11th April 2015 Drill Hall, Lincoln http://www.lincolndrillhall.com/
Thursday 16th April 2015 Watermill Jazz Club, Dorking http://www.watermilljazz.co.uk/
Friday 17th April 2015 Wakefield Jazz Club, Wakefield http://www.wakefieldjazz.org/
Thursday 30th April 2015 The Spin Jazz Club, Oxford spinjazz.net/events
Jts subject with sympathy and honesty allied to painstaking detail. It's also highly readable and good value for money. Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble
March 9, 2015
Persian Jazz at The Pizza Express Jazz Club This Thursday
Dear London friends.
On Saturday I played at Kings Place with an incredible Iranian group of musicians. The concert was a major success and will be repeated in the future. I found out yesterday that setar virtuoso Mehdi Rostami is staying in Britain for a few more days and decided immediately to invite him together with Kamancheh soloist Abid Rostami to guest with the OHE’s Pizza Express album Launch on Thursday 12ve. It is promised to be an unforgettable musical summit. Make sure to book ASAP..
To Book online: Thursday 12th March click here
This is obviously my best possible answer to Benjamin Netanyahu’s Congress Address. He wants war, I prefer to jam.
Album Launch – Pizza Express Jazz Club Residency – March 11th-14th
Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble
Are Launching The Whistle Blower at The Pizza Express March 11th-14th
Gilad Atzmon and The Orient House Ensemble will be launching their 8th album "The Whistle Blower" in a four night residency at The Pizza Express Jazz Club in London Soho.
The hardest working jazz band in the UK and one of the leading ensembles in Europe is currently on a 35 date tour in the UK and Europe playing their new music as well as old favourites.
The Orient House Ensemble are celebrating their 15th year in 2015.
Gilad is the saxophonist on the new Pink Floyd album The Endless River.
To book online:
Wednesday 11th March click here
Thursday 12th March click here
Friday 13th March click here
Saturday 14th March click (sold out)
Box office: 0845 6027 017
Show Time 8:30pm / Doors Open 7pm Jazz Club Soho
10 Dean Street
Soho
London
W1D 3RW
Watch the video
To buy The Whistle Blower:
Fanfare.website (cd)
Fanfare.website (download)
March 8, 2015
Red Ice Radio-Gilad Atzmon - Hour 1 - Zionist Pressure Groups & Jewish Identity Politics
To listen: http://www.redicecreations.com/radio/2015/03/RIR-150306.php
This is a superb dissidence outlet. a real inspiration!
In the first hour, Mr. Atzmon gives an account of the recent cancellation of his scheduled performance with the Orient House Ensemble at Manchester’s Royal Northern College of Music. The prestigious cultural institute gave into pressure to stop the show by the ultra-Zionist organization North West Friends of Israel (NWFOI), who accused Atzmon of “fostering anti-Semitism” and denying the holocaust. Gilad speaks about the historically strained relationship between Jews and Europeans, the questionable ethics of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS Movement) and the serious issue of British pedophile networks. Then, he talks about the controlled opposition of the Jewish anti-Zionist network, which diverts attention from Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and the Leftist domination that has left Palestine to crumble. Gilad gets into the largely Jewish phenomenon of identity politics, the division of Europe’s working class, and enforced monoculture. In an exceptional extended second half, Gilad speaks to the psychopathic principles of Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his process of projection. We discuss the link between the BDS boycott movement, funding from liberal Zionist George Soros, LGBTQ influence and the role of the Open Society associating gay rights with the Palestinian cause. Later, we examine the effects of splicing society into marginal discourses and the disastrous sexual revolution. In conclusion, we chew over the root cause of pervasive fear of anti-Semitism.
Relevant links
gilad.co.uk
See Gilad Atzmon Live at the Jazz Club Soho (Pizza Express) March 11th
Reverse the concert cancellation of the Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble
Gilad Atzmon gig cancellation criticised
Israel Shahak
Norman Finkelstein
Alan Dershowitz
Jewish group evolutionary strategy
Sarah Schulman
What good Muslims think of Jews by Laura Stuart
Israel/Palestine and the Queer International
Israel/Palestine and the Queer International – A Book Review by Gilad Atzmon
Marwan Barghouti
Judith Butler
Jewish volunteers in the Spanish Civil War
Against Fascism - Jews who served in The International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War
Joseph Massad
March 7, 2015
RT's Going Underground: Gilad Atzmon, Gaza Mon Amour & Zionist intimidation
Afshin Rattansi goes underground with jazz saxophonist Gilad Atzmon discusses Israel and Palestine, after one of his gigs was cancelled due to ‘safety concerns’ after the venue was ‘blitzed with a lot of extremist and threatening messages’ from a pro-Israeli group.
To support our call please consider signing this petition: https://www.change.org/p/royal-northern-college-of-music-reverse-the-concert-cancellation-of-the-gilad-atzmon-the-orient-house-ensemble
This week - Album Launch – Pizza Express Jazz Club Residency – March 11th-14thGilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble
Are Launching The Whistle Blower at The Pizza Express March 11th-14th
To book on line:
Wednesday 11th March click here
Thursday 12th March click here
Friday 13th March click here
Saturday 14th March click here
Box office: 0845 6027 017
Show Time 8:30pm / Doors Open 7pm Jazz Club Soho
10 Dean Street
Soho
London
W1D 3RW
Watch the video
Gilad Atzmon says 'thanks for the publicity' to Jewish lobby who opposed his RNCM gig
By Steph Brawn
Jazz saxophonist Gilad Atzmon has thanked a Jewish lobby for the publicity surrounding his cancelled gig at the Royal Northern College of Music.
The college decided to call off Mr Atzmon’s gig earlier this week due to threats to student safety by the North West Friends of Israel who were claiming the jazz musician was anti-Semitic.
However, Mr Atzmon believes their plan to convince the college he should not play at the venue has backfired as his views and his name has made its way across the globe faster than he could ever have imagined.
He told MM: “I thought to myself maybe I should start to work with these Jewish groups because they definitely help me a lot to promote my ideas.
“I was scheduled to come to Manchester to play music for two hours, not to talk about my views and I didn’t have any plans to do so.
“Instead of that, I was sitting at home, I was getting paid, and I see that the local BBC feature me and my thoughts and actually express all my views and explain to a wide audience, much wider than my audience, how violent the Jewish lobby is.
“I can tell you my music publicist would have to work very hard to even get a preview on these platforms. I may be able to start doing arenas very soon if the groups carry on as they are.”
The 51-year-old has played with some British greats over the years including Sir Paul McCartney and Robbie Williams and the RNCM have admitted that they are embarrassed by what has happened.
A statement from the college said that the decision to pull the gig in no way reflected their political views and was done on the grounds of safety; they had security guards on the entrance doors last night.
It is the second time in recent weeks that Mr Atzmon has had a show pulled, following the cancellation of his performance at Nottingham’s Bonington Theatre in January after 13 complaints were made.
Many have protested against the cancellation, claiming it constrains freedom of expression and shows the venue were 'bullied' by the group.
