{"id":10001,"date":"2011-02-03T11:08:55","date_gmt":"2011-02-03T18:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=10001"},"modified":"2011-02-15T09:19:44","modified_gmt":"2011-02-15T16:19:44","slug":"cool-collaborations-at-the-tel-aviv-jazz-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=10001","title":{"rendered":"Cool Collaborations at the Tel Aviv Jazz Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cPart of the fun is seeing the bird\u2019s eye view, watching trends develop,\u201d says Barak Weiss, co-artistic director with Nitzan Kremer of the Tel Aviv Jazz Festival <\/a>that will take place from February 15 \u2013 18, 2011 at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque.<\/p>\n

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Shauli Einav\/Photo: Solan Marielle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Talking to Weiss about the festival is like hearing a jazz riff, the theme wanders through different directions and improvisations, to return transformed as we talk about musical collaborations, composition and trends in Israeli jazz. His sense of fun and anticipation are contagious, especially when he describes the musical collaborations like the performance of Shauli Einav with Tigran Hamasyan <\/a>coming up on February 16, 2011. \u201cShauli Einav <\/a>was a prot\u00e9g\u00e9e of Arnie Lawrence (jazz saxophonist, 1938 \u2013 2005) an important person in Jerusalem,\u201d Weiss tells me, \u201cLawrence played in many significant ensembles [from Charles Mingus to Blood Sweat and Tears] in New York, and then he made aliyah in 1997. His agenda was co-existence and he founded the International Center for Creative Music where he taught music, gathering in Arab and Jewish students. He had a phenomenal influence on the jazz scene, ask any Israeli musician. He was eccentric, someone everyone admired.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShauli Einav received his BM degree from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and his masters at Eastman School of Music Rochester in New York. He released an album a few months ago, Opus One, with the French Label Plus Loin. It was very important to me to bring him here. Tigran is a virtuoso pianist. People tend to admire technique but in jazz, technique is just the first stage. He is a melodist, with deep compositions. It\u2019s impressive to see someone his age, he\u2019s 23 or 24, compose this way. He also has a connection to Armenian music in his compositions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShauli and Tigran played together in New York. It is so important to send Israeli musicians abroad\u00a0 – they not only study with great musicians but meet and play with so many musicians\u2026 then they can return and teach others. People don\u2019t always understand, and this connection between Shauli and Tigran is a great example.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Albert Berger\/Photo: Yoav Itiel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another ongoing musical conversation is the one between saxophonist Albert Beger <\/a>and percussionist Hamid Drake [also performing with the Nicole Mitchell trio], who will perform together on Tuesday, February 15, 2011. Albert Beger recorded Evolving Silence (Vol 1 2005 & Vol 2 2006 on the Earsay\u2019s Jazz) with Hamid Drake and William Parker. Weiss sees in this collaboration, \u201cSomething a little more challenging\u2026I\u2019m very curious to hear them together, to see what comes out of this connection. It\u2019s not just music of the moment, improv, Albert has composed a great deal in recent years. The festival exists for these kinds of encounters.\u201d The performance will be recorded live and released on the Anova Music <\/a>label. \u201cIt has to be recorded live,\u201d comments Weiss, \u201cit needs the energy of the audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for trends, Weiss says that he is seeing \u201cslightly larger ensembles, usually you have one or two horns and a rhythm section. Now the emphasis is not the size itself but the direction they are taking with the music. It\u2019s the daring of Israeli musicians who are beginning to create more complex compositions. They don\u2019t just get together \u2013 let\u2019s play a standard together, they start a melody and then each musician improvises in turn, but rather, there is an emphasis on composition.\u201d He mentions Shauli Einav once more in this context, as well as Eden Bareket, Ofer Shapira and Ayelet Rose Gottlieb.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Ayelet Rose Gottlieb\/Photo courtesy of PR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Vocalist and composer Ayelet Rose Gottlieb <\/a>will be performing Betzidei Drachim [On the Roadside] a special festival production with guest musician Alon Oleartchik. In this program Ayelet explores Israeli and Palestinian poetry through her jazz compositions. \u201cShe has an element of jazz and contemporary classical,\u201d says Weiss, and notes, \u201cI\u2019m happy to point out that she is originally from Jerusalem. She studied composition at the New England Conservatory and has recorded 2 CDs on John Zorn\u2019s Tsadik label. Her previous album [Mayim Rabim \u2013 a song cycle based on text from the Biblical Song of Songs] had a similar concept. She\u2019s not your typical jazz vocalist.\u201d For Weiss, the encounter between musicians creating together is one of the most exciting aspects of the festival, he emphasizes that when Ayelet hosts Alon Oleartchik in her performance, \u201che won\u2019t just be singing some of his hits; he is really performing with her.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Efrat Gosh\/Photo: Yariv Fine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Continuing the theme of connections is Tel Aviv-Paris-New York, the Tel Aviv Jazz Orchestra featuring Efrat Gosh<\/a>, with arrangements by musical director & conductor Amikam Kimmelman which will take place on Friday, February 18, 2011. They will close the festival with a world tour of standards by George Gershwin, Nat King Cole, French chansons, and Efrat\u2019s hits in Kimmelman\u2019s arrangements.<\/p>\n

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Kobi Salomon\/Photo courtesy of PR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some of the best things in life\u00a0are<\/em> free, and the free performances in the cinematheque lobby every night are another great festival tradition, and a wonderful opportunity to become acquainted with new musicians, or discover a different aspect of musicians experimenting with different styles. Additional information and a complete program in English can be found on the Tel Aviv Jazz Festival site <\/a>and more updates (and other goodies!) on the facebook page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cPart of the fun is seeing the bird\u2019s eye view, watching trends develop,\u201d says Barak Weiss, co-artistic director with Nitzan Kremer of the Tel Aviv Jazz Festival that will take place from February 15 \u2013 18, 2011 at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque. Talking to Weiss about the festival is like hearing a jazz riff, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10001\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}