[JPL] The Israel–New York pipeline yields a fresh crop of serious jazz talent

[r durfee]

Interval
Chiri Biri Bim, Chiri Biri Bop
The Israel–New York pipeline yields a fresh crop of
serious jazz talent
by Francis Davis
May 15th, 2007 3:41 PM 


Anat Fort
A Long Story
ECM

Anat Cohen
Poetica 
Anzic

Anat Cohen & the Anzic Orchestra
Noir
Anzic

Roni Ben-Hur
Keepin' It Open
Motéma 
 
Twenty years ago, around the time that he and other
improvisers from what was still the Soviet Union
became subjects of much amazement in the U.S., pianist
Vyacheslav Ganelin surprised everyone by emigrating
from Lithuania to Israel—he was fleeing anti-Semitism,
but in terms of jazz, it was as if he were exchanging
a spot on the dark side of the moon for another not
nearly as bright. Much has changed since then. For one
thing, the demise of Communism seems to have resulted
in an economy entirely based on white slavery and
credit card fraud, which ought to be enough to make
fans of Ronald Reagan think twice. For another,
Israel—of all places—has started producing jazz talent
and exporting it here. New York is now home to not one
but two young Israel-born musicians named Avishai
Cohen, one a bassist and former sideman with Chick
Corea, the other a trumpeter and brother to
saxophonist and clarinetist Anat Cohen. Though hardly
comparable to the legion of hard-boppers nurtured by
Detroit and Philadelphia in the '50s, the list of
transplanted Israelis is long and growing—for
starters, pianist Anat Fort, guitarist Roni Ben-Hur,
bassist Omer Avital, violinist Miri Ben-Ari, and
saxophonists Danny Zamir, Ori Kaplan, Eli Degibri,
Ohad Talmor (born in France and raised in Switzerland,
but of Israeli extraction), and Gilad Atzmon (U.K.
jazz's reigning bad boy, a Palestinian sympathizer who
describes himself as "a former Israeli and former
Jew"). 
Artists everywhere draw on feelings of community and
their own alienation—a symbolic Jewish homeland that
rivals the U.S. for military aggression would seem to
offer its artists ample opportunity for both. But more
to the point, it's the only Middle Eastern country
where Western influences are openly embraced, and its
otherness from its neighbors would make it a natural
melting pot even if being a magnet for Jews the world
over didn't already. Take for example Anat Fort's A
Long Story, which begins with a trio performance of a
piece of hers called "Just Now," featuring Ed Schuller
on bass and Paul Motian on drums. The piece is
reprised twice, first in a solo piano variation about
20 minutes in, and then with clarinetist Perry
Robinson added to the trio at the very end. A chant is
implicit in the song's knuckled, elegiac piano line,
but is the echo I'm hearing Eastern European or
Muslim? No doubt it's a conflation of the two, also
imbued with the influence of Keith Jarrett's folksier
side. What matters is that it lures you in
immediately, establishing a contemplative mood
undispelled over the next hour, even as the interplay
between Fort and her better-known sidemen gradually
becomes freer and more open-ended, reaching a peak
with Fort's length-of-the-keyboard leaps and Motian's
abstract tap-dancing on "Rehaired," which leads into
Robinson's clarinet gnarls and otherworldly ocarina
whistles on the following "As Two/Something 'Bout
Camels." 

Seeing the elusive Robinson's name on the cover was
all that moved A Long Story to the top of the CD
stack, given that I don't recall ever hearing Peel,
Fort's 1999 DIY debut. The lone avant-garde
clarinetist who wasn't a doubling saxophonist for a
long time in the '60s, Robinson has never recorded as
much as his talent should warrant. Although present on
only five of Story's 11 tracks, he doesn't disappoint:
As capable of relaxed lyricism as he is of agitation,
he yawns and stretches on "Chapter Two," a duet with
Fort, and floats like Paul Desmond on her near-blues
"Not a Dream?" But Fort is a real discovery, a pianist
who's absorbed her influences (Paul Bley and Cecil
Taylor, along with Jarrett) and already has a clear
identity as a composer. She produced Story
herself—though it fits the ECM mold of
album-as-narrative, label founder Manfred Eicher
became involved after the fact, via label regular
Motian. The notes say she planned on including a few
standards until Motian, offering counsel as the
veteran musician on the date, talked her out of it.
Too bad, in a way, because Fort's own compositions are
so songlike, it would have been interesting to get her
take on a familiar melody or two. In the end, though,
Motian was right: Story feels complete as is, all of a
piece to a degree even few ECMs are. 

What else pertaining to Israel is in the pile? Anat
Cohen plays only clarinet, her best horn, on Poetica,
which spotlights her with a rhythm section plus a
string quartet arranged by bassist Omer Avital on six
of 10 tracks. Four graceful Israeli melodies rest
comfortably amid Coltrane's "Lonnie's Lament," a
Jacques Brel tune, and gently surging originals by
Cohen and Avital. Heard a track at a time, Poetica is
beguiling, but one after another, all those pensive,
slow-to-medium tempos begin to wear on you. Noir, a
companion release also featuring Cohen on booting
tenor, soprano, and alto saxophones—and crescendoing
orchestral arrangements by Oded Lev-Ari—offers more
variety and more pure joy. Its accents are from South
America, though fluidly Brazilian rather than that
choppy Manhattan-Latin take on Afro-Cuban rhythm
currently in vogue in jazz (and on tedious display
throughout much of As Is . . . Live at the Blue Note,
the latest release by the Avishai Cohen who plays
bass). Pixinguinha's "Ingênuo" and Ernesto Lecuona's
"La Comparsa" are the most buoyant of Lev-Ari's Gil
Evans–worthy transformations of what used to be called
"light" classics, and the older pop tunes here are
ones you don't hear everyday—Lev-Ari pulls out all the
stops on "Cry Me a River" (that torch song to end all
torch songs), and so does Cohen on clarinet, soaring
from chalumeau to piping in a blink. 

And let's not overlook Roni Ben-Hur, a guitarist in
his mid-forties with a veiled tone and hornlike attack
like vintage Kenny Burrell, who's about a decade older
than either Cohen or Fort and has been in New York
longer. With pianist Ronnie Mathews and drummer Lewis
Nash on hand—and the leader himself no slouch at
crisp, idiomatic bebop phrasing—it's not surprising
that Monk's "Think of One" and Elmo Hope's "One Second
Please" are among the highlights of Ben-Hur's new
Keepin' It Open. But the album's stunner—and an
example of the sort of thing that would have once
sounded exotic, but is increasingly common—is
"Eshkolit," a traditional Sephardic melody featuring
brooding, suspenseful solos by Ben-Hur and trumpeter
Jeremy Pelt. You never know where the next tune is
coming from these days, nor the next batch of players.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anat Fort performs at Cornelia Street Café May 17,
corneliastreetcafe.com. 
 
http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0720,davis,76648,22.html

Roy Durfee
P.O. Box 40219
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87196-0219
rdurfee2003 at yahoo.com


       
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