{"id":19345,"date":"2012-05-17T00:55:32","date_gmt":"2012-05-17T07:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=19345"},"modified":"2012-05-21T02:34:01","modified_gmt":"2012-05-21T09:34:01","slug":"israel-festival-2012-sheila-jordan-her-israeli-friend-tomer-bar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=19345","title":{"rendered":"Israel Festival 2012: Sheila Jordan & Her Israeli Friend Tomer Bar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere was always music at home,\u201d says high school senior Tomer Bar, who will be performing with jazz legend Sheila Jordan at the 2012 Israel Festival.\u00a0 American vocalist Jordan was awarded her nation\u2019s highest honor this year: 2012 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master. In recognition of this award, the Israel Festival will present a tribute concert on May 31, 2012 \u2013 Sheila Jordan and Friends<\/a>, sponsored by the U.S. Embassy. Performing with Jordan will be Israeli jazz musicians Assaf Hakimi (bass), Yaki Levi (drums), Yonatan Voltzok (trombone), and Tomer Bar on piano.<\/p>\n

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Tomer Bar\/Photo: Yonatan Hayon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tomer is just on the verge of graduating from Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts, but this will be his third performance at the Israel Festival: the first was in 2007, with his debut album \u201cMemories<\/em>,\u201d and the second was in 2010. I chatted with Tomer on the Thelma Yellin campus, as he took some time out between studying for his upcoming test in Literature to talk about music.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really connect to definitions,\u201d Tomer responded when I asked how he would define his style, but gladly discussed the influences on his music, citing \u201ctraditional jazz and contemporary jazz, Pat Metheny, and the New York scene \u2013 Aaron Goldberg, Ari Hoenig \u2013 my friends listen to them a lot, Bill Evans music from the 60s and 70s\u2026.and all this improv and traditional jazz connects with, I don\u2019t know if I would say Israeli music, because I don\u2019t know if there is such a thing, but the Israeli experience. There are other musicians who have found this fusion in their music, Avishai Cohen (bassist) is the best of them, and is an important influence for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn everything I\u2019ve done \u2026 I have the urge to create\u2026I want to become a part of it and create something\u2026with music I started out (at age eight) playing the three chords I knew and shouting out words by association, and when I discovered the format of jazz I couldn\u2019t let go of it because it plunged me into an endless stream: go and create! Hearing it and hearing others creating – it\u2019s a world you can dive into \u2026you can drown.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBill Evans was always, always, the musician I most connected to, he brings something from different worlds into his music. He is less traditional, there is magic in his playing. Later (at Thelma Yellin) I went back in time to hear more traditional jazz – Coltrane and Miles, pianists like Red Garland, Wynton Kelly, Tommy Flanagan. I loved listening to Charlie Parker, Evans and Parker were the names that were always with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the ways in which the Israeli experience finds expression in Tomer\u2019s music is through his singing; many of the pieces he has composed over the years merge song with instrumentals. \u201cI always loved popular music and songs, I always loved songs.\u00a0 I\u2019ve never left anything, I don\u2019t find something and then let it go, I find something and then discover something else and it all connects,\u201d he smiled as he explained, \u201cIt\u2019s like a trash bag – I always feel like I\u2019m throwing things in and it all stays in the same bag together and there\u2019s always this juice at the bottom of the bag, and this juice is the creation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Singing as he plays has always been a way for Tomer to express something more intimate in his music, as he said, \u201cI always aspired\u2026the piano is a good instrument but\u2026. my classical teacher probably wouldn\u2019t connect to this kind of statement\u2026but the piano isn\u2019t expressive in the way that a saxophone is expressive, in its close relationship to the body. When you hear a sax you feel the breath, you feel his character in his breath.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSlowly I am finding my way to sing without singing, through the piano. Now (studying with Menahem Wiesenberg) I am exposed to a deep, different world of music, classical music \u2026I had always felt that music began in the 50s with Parker\u2026I always played classical music but it was just a lesson twice a week but never gave it much thought. But when you discover the depth and connection to nature you can\u2019t let go of it and then you go back to jazz with a new depth, waking up to a new dawn of spontaneity. But I will always sing, singing will always be a part of whatever I do in music.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Sheila Jordan\/Photo: Ed Lanni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The connection to jazz vocalist Sheila Jordan happened quite spontaneously. Tomer recalled, \u201cI went through a period when everything connected to Charlie Parker excited me\u2026there was a Clint Eastwood film on Parker \u2013 Bird. He has recordings that can take your breath away; there is something so whole and human in his music.\u00a0 Sheila Jordan came to Israel and there was a rumor that she knew Parker. So I went backstage and said, \u201cHi, I\u2019m Tomer and I heard that you knew Parker.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, during her performance in Haifa, Jordan invited Tomer onstage to play some blues with her, and now, as he says, \u201cI have the great honor to play with her at the Israel Festival.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jordan will be bringing the playlist with her own arrangements to the songs. As a student of music, Tomer said, he and his friends play the jazz standards, \u201cbut she brings the songs from the source \u2013 \u2018I was there, I developed it\u2019 \u2013 it\u2019s very exciting, it brings it all much closer. I just had a Bagrut exam on the history of jazz, you learn about people like Barry Harris – he played with her.\u201d<\/p>\n

This past January, Tomer attended the Jazz Education Network Conference performing with the Thelma Yellin Big Band, an experience he describes as \u201cthe most fun I\u2019ve had\u201d on a concert tour. \u201cThe program includes about 100 performances every day and we\u2019d go to sleep really late every night, we\u2019d jam every night. One morning I woke up at 10:00, after I\u2019d gone to sleep at 6:00, maybe the light woke me. So I looked at the program and saw Sheila Jordan was performing at 10:00 and it was 10:00, so I ran in my flip flops, and the clothes I had slept in, into a hall full of people \u2013 musicians, music arrangers \u2013 Super arrangers, all these famous people. She performed with violins, such a moving performance\u2026and she sings her Be Bop.\u00a0 Parker had an album with violins (Charlie Parker with Strings). I was mesmerized. [Afterwards] The super-arrangers are all standing in line to see her, and then she sees me at the end of the line and comes up to me and gives me a hug! She\u2019s such a warm person, 83 years old with the energies of a kid – a mythic figure that I am accompanying as a sideman. It\u2019s very exciting to perform with her.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to school and travel, for the past year and a half, Tomer has been playing with two close friends – Uri Kutner on bass and Ofri Nehemya on drums, in room 208 at Thelma Yellin. \u201cWe didn\u2019t know where it would go, it was a lot of fun,\u201d said Tomer, \u201cWe also performed during that time, and then we decided to document what we had done, and record an album.\u201d One of their performances took place in November 2011 at the International Exposure for Jazz and World Music<\/a>, and has already generated an invitation to perform at the Sunnyside club in Paris on June 6, 2012. For Tomer, the album (which was produced by Eli Digibri) \u201cfeels like a kind of personal journal. Our album is called Local Groove<\/em> and that\u2019s what it is. We found a world of our own in which we express ourselves, in a way what is close to us, always coming closer to it\u2026 I think that the place you are in, and the influence of your surroundings is very meaningful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tomer and the Tomer Bar Trio in “Ruach” (Wind) from the launch of their album Local Groove<\/em> at the Yellow Submarine in Jerusalem, February 2012:
\n<\/object>
\nSheila Jordan and Friends: A Tribute to Sheila Jordan<\/strong>
\nMay 31, 2012 at 21:00, Henry Crown Auditorium, Jerusalem Theatre
\nTickets and information are available on the Israel Festival website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere was always music at home,\u201d says high school senior Tomer Bar, who will be performing with jazz legend Sheila Jordan at the 2012 Israel Festival.\u00a0 American vocalist Jordan was awarded her nation\u2019s highest honor this year: 2012 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master. In recognition of this award, the Israel Festival will present […]<\/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-19345","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\/19345","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=19345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}