Nostalgico

The Sunday Times

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 18 2001
Jazz New Releases: Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble
***Outstanding
GILAD ATZMON & THE ORIENT HOUSE ENSEMBLE***
Nostalgico
Enja Tiptoe TIP-888 841-2

ISRAELI expat saxophonist Gilad Atzmon has had some harsh things to say about
the sterility of so much contemporary jazz. No doubt one or two cynics would have
liked to see him fall flat on his face on Nostalgico. But too bad for them that he pulls
off the difficult trick of pressing into new territory without dishing the mainstream bop
tradition or opting for commercial gimmicks. Atzmon's band can play with all the
wayward fire of a klezmer band on the infectious Lust for Sale; elsewhere he
sometimes evokes the cool, understated tone of the late Paul Desmond. His clarinet
snakes through Bechet's "Petite Fleur". He even makes the overfamiliar In a
Sentimental Mood sound fresh. Poised between past and present, East and West,
Nostalgico speaks in authentically individual tongues.

Clive Davis

The Guardian

Gilad Atzmon

Pizza Express Jazz Club, London
Rating: ****
John Fordham

Tuesday October 9, 2001

Appearing with his Orient House quartet, this gig saw Gilad Atzmon launching a new disc, Nostalgico. The charismatic, British-resident Israeli saxophonist plays an unshakably personal, mixed-culture music full of Middle-Eastern harmonies. With the quartet, his sound spans an immense range of straightahead and worldbeat jazz, from Sidney Bechet's tunes as minimalist tone-poems to Wayne Shorter's Footprints as a north-African village dance.

Atzmon has a spine-tingling tone on saxophones and clarinet, and the capacity to evoke human sounds from cries to hispers. Over piano chords that tolled like a church clock, and scurrying hand-drumming from the excellent Asaf Sirkis, Atzmon's weaving and cajoling clarinet hypnotised the audience. Switching to soprano and again unfurling a sound of tremulous grace, Atzmon at first sustained the reflective ballad mood, but gradually quickened its pulse into eager swing, through which the melody of Some Day My Prince Will Come emerged.

The band then launched into a whirling Middle-Eastern dance, with the leader adopting a characteristic shuffle of wooping fast lines and short phrases, pausing as if waiting for an echo that could tell him something he wasn't expecting. The deft young pianist Frank Harrison increasingly opened out in this piece. In its later stages, Atzmon took to reprising the hot and urgent theme at half-pace over the hustle of the band, exploring the clarinet's dolorous, almost choking sound.

It Ain't Necessarily So became a kind of funeral march over Sirkis's stately snare tattoo and Oli Hayhurst's pulsating bass. Caravan flew briefly through it at breakneck speed, before it was overtaken by Mack the Knife. Atzmon, a hilariously, sometimes bleakly deadpan raconteur, then informed the audience that a esser-known international crisis was brewing in Algeria, because of Britain's shameless theft of part of that country's cultural heritage. The band gleefully swept into a traditional Algerian folk tune that certainly was, no doubt about it . . . God Save the Queen.

BBC Music Magazine

Gilad Atzmon & the Orient House Ensemble
Nostalgico

Tip Toe TIP-888 841 2
Atzmon (ss, as cl); Frank Harrison (p, melodica, ky); Oli Hayhurst (b); Asaf Sirkis (d, bandir) + Brian Neil (g); Joe de Jesus (t, tb)
50.24 minutes

In his deeply personal liner note to this album, Gilad Atzmon explains its title by recalling his childhood in Israel, dreaming about Western culture: "I would close my eyes, meditate over Italian melodies and Afro-American sounds, and recollect film scenes in black and white." The album's music he describes as "about infulfilled dreams and fragmented melodies ... a fantasy that dissolved into a broken rhythmic reality", perfectly summarizing Nostalgico's musical richness, variety and inventiveness, but conveying neither its emotional power nor its sheer gutsiness and immediate accessibility. For these are the qualities that Atzmon has brought to the London jazz scene since settling in the city in 1996: in addition to a faultless technique on all his horns that enables him to play blistering bebop on alto with as much facility as he performs klezmer-inflected melodies on clarinet, or jazz classics (such as this album's "I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good") on soprano, he imbues all he plays with a passion that he himself traces back to his having been brought up "to be an oppressor, a role which didn't suit me and which I couldn't accept". Consequently, Nostalgico, from its intriguing reworkings of the familiar ? "Lust for Sale" infusing the Porter classic with disturbing power, "20th Century" incorporating "It Ain't Necessarily So" and "Mack the Knife" into a haunting, funereal march, a brooding threnody for a uniquely turbulent era ? to its imaginative filterings of such material as "Petite Fleur" and "Singing in the Rain" through the sensibilities of one of the most open-eared and adaptable bands in contemporary jazz, is that rarest of animals: a genuinely eclectic album transformed into a wholly satisfying artistic statement courtesy of the unswerving commitment and vigorous but flawless musicality of its performers.

Atz the way to do it

Gilad Atzmon Orient House Ensemble

by Jack Massarik at Pizza Express Dean St, 4/10/01

Jackie Mason, ex-rabbi and New York supercomic, was appallingly unfunny on BBC
FiveLive this week on post-twin towers attitudes. Not so Israeli saxophonist and
exsoldier Gilad Atzmon, who launched his latest album, Nostalgico, in London last
night with a volley of crisp political quips.

"Good to see so many men here tonight," he said, "when your country is preparing to go to war." Or later: "We don't want to mention anthrax, but our new album sums up the last century for the very short next one." And: "We just got back from Algeria, where they have a folk song, Wahele, Wahele (illustrating it with soprano sax and drums), just like God Save the Queen. And they want Between gags, his mix of bop and klezmer was delivered with such visual, shoulder-hunched passion that, after po-faced performances by so many recent bands, he could hardly lose. Largely ignoring his main instrument, the alto sax, he picked up the more vocal clarinet and soprano sax to give famous jazz numbers like Petite Fleur and Footprints ("Wayne Shorter's foot-and-mouth print") a unique blend of snappy East Coast and soulful West Bank.

His precis of the 20th century involved Gershwin's It Ain't Necessarily So, the middleeight of Duke Ellington's Caravan, and the first eight of Kurt Weill's Mack the Knife.
Sidemen Frank Harrison, Oli Hayhurst and Asif Serkis on piano, bass and drums played sensitive supporting roles behind a sharp-witted leader with radical ideas well worth hearing.

The Guardian Guide

September 29, 2001

'Gilad Atzmon's new band shows an embrace of multi-cultural music - Jewish, Arabic and Balkan in particular - he lacked the confidence to showcase until the UK scene had come to appreciate him for the formidable force he is. Atzmon is more capable of playing the daylights out of hyperactive contemporary jazz than most, but he has a suspicion that the music can sometimes obscure its story by too many notes. Orient House are currently on a UK tour to promote a new CD on the German ENJA label, called Nostalgico. Atzmon has said that the title of this relaxed and poignant album reflects "unfulfilled dreams and fragmented melodies" - the musical outcomes of reflection on the contradictions of his own childhood in Israel, his emerging anti - Zionism, and a mix of musical influences taking in Ellington and Gershwin, Balkan and klezmer music. These gigs hould confirm what an unpredictable, passionate and witty performer Atzmon is growing ever more assuredly into'.

(John Fordham)

Jazz CD Choice-Evening standard

Nostalgico
Artist: Gilad Atzmon and the Orient House Ensemble
Label: Enja Tiptoe

by Jack Massarik

Writing about his new album some weeks before the World Trade Centre outrage, the
Israeli altoist Gilad Atzmon thought fit to mention his unease with his country and its
part in the Middle East conflict.

'I think I was born in the wrong time and the wrong place,' he mused. 'Born when jazz
became a retrospective art form rather than an authentic expression [and born] in a
small, colonial, nationalistic province in the eastern corner of the Mediterranean Sea... a
land which had been taken by force. I was brought up to be an oppressor, a role which
didn't suit me and which I couldn't accept. This album is about unfulfilled dreams and
fragmented melodies, a fantasy that dissolved into a broken rhythmic reality.'

That soul-searching statement now has a chilling resonance with the horrific scenes
from the US, whose jazz example forms a significant part of Atzmon's music, however
'retrospective' he may regard it.

Cannonball Adderley's alto-sax influence, so fluent, boppish and impassioned, still
comes through as strongly as anything Gilad learned from his homeland. He's equally
lyrical on soprano and clarinet, but more original. Presumably the nostalgic element of
his latest album refers to the old jazz standards ('I Got It Bad', 'In A Sentimental Mood',
'Petite Fleur') he includes among his newer East Coast-meets-West Bank originals
('Lust For Sale', 'The Devil Sings Again'). There's nothing backward about playing
standards, Gilad. Top artists like Keith Jarrett, Mike Brecker, Roy Hargrove and the
great Sonny Rollins don't think so.

And neither does big Jim Mullen, whose latest album, 11 x 3, with Hammond organist
James Watson and drummer Matt Skelton, features such chestnuts as 'You Stepped Out
Of A Dream', 'Embraceable You', 'As Time Goes By' and even that Jungle Book
novelty, 'I Wanna Be Like You'. Mullen's mature, thumb-driven guitar solos make
valid jazz of them all, and not in a retrospective spirit either.

Gilad Atzmon and the Orient House Ensemble

Nostalgico (Tip Toe) ***

Frank Zappa once described nostalgia as a great plague threatening to engulf mankind, reaching the tail-swallowing level where people would become nostalgic for their last footstep, wondering if the next step they took could ever be as good. In jazz, the battle between nostalgia, history and innovation is played out constantly in the racks of CD reissues, in the letters pages of magazines and in the over-stimulated heads of fans everywhere. As Geoff Dyer wrote in his afterword to But Beautiful, jazz "has remained uniquely in touch with the animating force of its origins... every time [a saxophonist] picks up his horn he cannot avoid commenting, automatically and implicitly... on the tradition that has laid this music at his feet". Saxophonist Gilad Atzmon tackles such issues head on with Nostalgico, an album that's clever, musical and beautifully produced by Philip Bagenal, who places the musicians in a big, warm acoustic space that sounds completely up to date. Atzmon's material draws upon jazz tunes such as Ellington's I Got it Bad and That Ain't Good, Tizol's Caravan and Bechet's Petite Fleur and show standards such as Singing In the Rain and Mack the Knife. Atzmon's originals act as a further critique, while paying tribute to the jazz tradition: Lust for Sale spins some middle-eastern razzmatazz over the chord sequence of Love for Sale, and the Ribot-like guitar of Paradiso Nostalgico adds another complex cross-reference. Yet the closing track The Devil Sings Again has a more edgy contemporary theme, which rides over a tough, acoustic-bass-led feel, perhaps leading Atzmon and his band into an uncharted, grittier and nostalgia-free future.

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

From the Bath Chronicle, Monday, October 1, 2001:
Gilad Atzmon and The Orient House Ensemble

The Albert Inn, Bedminster

Sunday, Sept 30

Gilad Atzmon has appeared several times in and around Bath playing straight ahead jazz and never failing to impress. This time, with his Orient House Ensemble, it was very different; more expansive in range, meditative, humorous, quirky, multicultural, with a strong political current.

Humour and politics were a big part of his clever between-song patter; [were he to lose his saxophones another career as a new millennium Lenny Bruce awaits.] Standards were still a major part of the repetoire but, from Sidney Bechet's Petite Fleur to Cole Porter's Love For Sale, they were played with a decidedly Middle Eastern twist.

Other flavours were in the musical brew too: klezmer, tango, blues and Ellingtonian jazz, but the nearly constant use of clarinet or soprano sax augmented the music's exotic nature. Despite the dominant role of Atzmon, this was clearly a group effort ­ and what an excellent group!

Drummer Asaf Sirkis was tremendous, playing Arabic rhythms on hand drums or using the kit in a flowing Elvin Jones/Danny Richmond manner. Pianist Frank Harrison, gentle but harmonically complex, recalled Bill Evans, while bassist Oli Hayhurst was solid, clear and perfect.

A high point was Twentieth Century, entwining a funereal It Ain't Necessarily So with Caravan and Mack The Knife;I leave it to you to figure it out. Atzmon's playing was as forceful as ever; by enlarging his scope, he is moving from major player toward major artist.

Charley Dunlap