Gilad with String @ Norwich Playhouse
Monday, November 30, 2009 at 2:22PM
ROB GARRATT
30 November 2009
Norwich Evening News
In 1949 jazz giant Charlie Parker recorded his Bird with Strings LP, an album that pitted the fiery bebop pioneer against an orchestra to create some of his most delicate, sumptuous playing.
As a 60th birthday present to Parker Israeli saxophonist-cum-philosopher Gilad Atzmon is performing a tribute to the monumental album, touring with a string section alongside his own experimental, outlandish quartet, the Orient House Ensemble.
For Norwich, though, it is old news - having premiered the project nearly 18 months ago at the Norfolk and Norwich and Festival in 2008 to a sold-out Playhouse, making the half-full room this time right a little disappointing.
Seemingly a step backward for Atzmon - who's compositional prowess ordinarily sees him flirting with Eastern scales, electronic effects and open forms - it is actually a deeply personal work, acknowledging the master who prompted him to pick up jazz in the first place.
He tackled the standards beautifully - with I Didn't Know What Time It Was and an encore of Laura producing some of the most pure and concise playing of his 15-year career, as he confidently paced the stage, arching his back soulfully.
But as well as a nostalgic look at Parker, it also took in Atzmon's own storied career. His own My Refuge and the overtly-political Burning Bush building up into controlled cacophony, the able Sigamos String Quartet forced to explore their instruments with slides and squeaks in a bid to be heard and understood.
Known for his outspoken anti-Zionism, between songs he cracked jokes and talked amicably for minutes at a time, presenting his own politics and biography is an amiable way that could not have been further from a rant.
It is not the first time he has acknowledged his debt to America, but it was truly moving to see an artist of Atzmon's calibre using the conventional string format to both pay Parker a much-deserved hat tip, and move his own art forward in a new and challenging format.
