M&G: The Tide Has Changed von Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble

Von Rainer Molz

9. Feb 2011, 13:14

****

Seine Musik ist wie eine Offenbarung. Als gefeierter Musiker der Jazzszene Großbritanniens, lässt er nun auch verstärkt Deutschland in den Genuss seiner Kunst kommen. Mit „The Tide Has Changed“ begibt sich Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble auf ein Bebop Terrain voller spannender Momente. Geprägt von nahöstlichen Klängen, schwebt die Musik in einem Dialog voller explosiver Augenblicke unaufhaltsam durch Raum und Zeit. Turbulent!

1963 wurde Gilad Atzmon in Jerusalem geboren. Im Jahre 2000 gründete der Holzblasinstrumentenmusiker die Formation The Orient House Ensemble. Nun gilt es in 2011 ein 10jähriges Jubiläum zu feiern. Zu diesem Anlass veröffentlicht das Quartett eine aufregende Produktion „The Tide Has Changed“. Eine ganz besonders ergreifende Mischung von Kultur und Tradition. Die knalligen Improvisationen versprühen Charme und leben vom schrägen Humor des Bandleaders. Im Dialog der Verspieltheiten – Bebop trifft auf nahöstliche Klänge.

Prägend dabei vor allen Dingen das raffinierte und eindringliche Spiel Gilad Atzmon. Der Multiinstrumentalist – er agiert an diversen Saxophonen, an Klarinette, Sol, Zurna und an Flöten – brennt vor Energie und verströmt unbändige Spannung.

Brillanz, Leidenschaft, Intensität und Wärme – das ist „The Tide Has Changed“. Zeitgenössischer Jazz in unterschiedlichen musikalischen Stilen zelebriert und verpackt. Empfehlenswert!

Line Up: Gilad Atzmon (Multiinstrumentalist), Frank Harrison (Piano, Xylophon), Yaron Stavi (Bass), Eddi Hick (Drums).

Ebenfalls vormerken: The 2011 Spring Tour: 06.03. Wien (A), 08.03. Redange (L), 09.03. Frankfurt, 11.03. Klosters (CH), 12.03. Chur (CH), 13.03. Freibrug, 14.03. Pforzheim, 15.03. Saarwellingen, 16.03. Zürich (CH), 17.03. Karlsruhe, 18.03. Köln, 19.03. Heilbronn. Weitere Informationen unter www.gilad.co.uk

 English translation

Gilad Atzmon: "The Tide Has Changed" (World Village)

His music is a revelation. As a celebrated musicians of the jazz scene in Britain, it can now also used increasingly in Germany to enjoy his art. With "The Tide Has Changed" goes to Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble on a terrain full of exciting moments Bebop. Influenced by Middle Eastern sounds of floats, the music in a dialogue of explosive moments inexorably through space and time. Turbulent!

1963 Gilad Atzmon was born in Jerusalem. In 2000 founded the woodwind musicians group The Orient House Ensemble. Now it is in 2011 a 10th anniversary celebration. At this event, the quartet is an exciting production of "The Tide Has Changed". A particularly poignant mix of culture and tradition. The bright improvisations exude charm and live off the quirky humor of the band leader. In the dialogue of playfulness - Bebop meets Middle Eastern sounds.

Influential here, above all, the refined and haunting play Gilad Atzmon. The multi-instrumentalist - he acts on various saxophones, clarinets, sol, zurna and flute - is burning with energy and exudes unbridled power.

Brilliance, passion, intensity and heat - this is "The Tide Has Changed". Contemporary Jazz celebrated in different musical styles and packaged. Recommended!

Line Up: Gilad Atzmon (multi-instrumentalist), Frank Harrison (piano, xylophone), Yaron Stavi (bass), Eddie Hicks (drums).

Also Mark your calendar: The 2011 Spring Tour: 06.03. Vienna (A), 08.03. Redange (L), 09.03. Frankfurt, 11.03. Klosters (CH), 12.03. Chur (CH), 13.03. Freibrug, 14.03. Pforzheim, 15.03. Saarwellingen, 16.03. Zurich (CH), 17.03. Karlsruhe, Germany, 18.03. Cologne, 19.03. Heilbronn. For more information www.gilad.co.uk



Spiegel: Gilad Atzmon- The Tide Has Changed (World Village)

http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/kulturspiegel/d-76655001.html

Gilad Atzmon: "The Tide Has Changed" (World Village)

Seine Saxofon-Soli sind von Charlie-Parker-hafter Intensität und zeigen einmal mehr, was für ein Super-Jazzer der Musiker ist, den viele vor allem als Politaktivisten kennen. Atzmon nennt sein Quartett nach dem Jerusalemer Hauptquartier von Arafats P.L.O. The Orient House Ensemble und ergreift auch als Schriftsteller Partei für die Palästinenser. In seiner Musik verbindet der nach England emigrierte Israeli orientalische und westliche Klänge. Atzmons Agitation geht unter die Haut!

English translation

Gilad Atzmon: "The Tide Has Changed" (World Village)

His saxophone solos of Charlie Parker-like intensity and shows once again what a super jazz musician, whom many know primarily as a political activist. Atzmon calls his quartet to the Jerusalem headquarters of Arafat's PLO The Orient House Ensemble, and also as a writer takes sides with the Palestinians. His music combines the Israeli who emigrated to England Eastern and Western sounds. Atzmon agitation gets under your skin!



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Record Collector, Christmas 2010 (4 stars)

4 STARS
 
“Another top notch saxophone-led set…by the prodigiously talented Gilad Atzmon and his band…By turns provocative, wistful and pugnacious, it bristles with intrepid invention and convincingly demonstrates that Atzmon’s definitely at the top of his game right now.”
Charles Waring, Record Collector, Christmas 2010
 

Chris Searle, Gilad to be free-The Morning Star (albums review)

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/97974

...For The Ghosts Within (Domino WIGCD263) – Gilad Atzmon And The Orient House Ensemble (World Village 450015)

Tuesday 23 November 2010

by Chris Searle

Israeli sax master Gilad Atzmon's collaborations remain as fluid, complex and competent as ever

The Tide Has Changed is the sixth album of the Orient House Ensemble, led by the Israeli altoist Gilad Atzmon, formed a decade ago and named in honour of the headquarters of the Palestinian people in Jerusalem.

"Ten years ago I realised that beauty is the way forward", Atzmon writes in his sleeve notes. And listening to his solo work on the title song after the hokum of the introductory track, you recognise too how the sheer beauty of his sounds - a unique amalgam of Hebraic, Arabic and jazz traditions - has gained authority, sonic unity and huge emotional depth during those years.

The quartet has a new drummer - Eddie Hick - with the ever-inventive Frank Harrison on piano and the pulse of Yaron Stavi on bass. Hick's rattling snares open And So Have We with Atzmon's clarinet, an expression of the Atzmon dictum that "the melody is the truth".

The Ensemble's version of Ravel's Bolero At Sunrise sits at the very altar of melody, an astonishing piece in a surprising context where Atzmon sweeps through a complex hybrid of sound patterns.

In the album's linchpin track - London To Gaza - the journey begins in Harrison's introductory phrases and winds through Atzmon's melody. Narratives are implied through the listener's own cultural experience, giving the impression of reading trench poems by Owen, Sassoon or Rosenberg, so much does Israel's murderous war and blockade strike at your ears, brain and heart.

Harrison takes fire too on his keys, and We Lament is a tailpiece of the union of agony and beauty in that besieged strip of the world.

The squeeze of Atmon's accordion sounds alongside his own alto, slowly traversing through In The Back Seat Of A Yellow Cab, while in All the Way to Montenegro the journey is a dance with infectious musical joy gathering rapidity as it progresses.

The grounding qualities of this unusual album lay in the unity of a surprising harmony shared between Atzmon's horns, the Sigamos String Quartet led by Ros Stephen and the voice or Robert Wyatt.

Atzmon and Sigamos came together in 2008 to cut the album of song-book ballads In Loving Memory of America once performed by Charlie Parker. But ...For The Ghosts Within is a very different creation indeed, made so by the addition of Wyatt's fragile, lifeworn and vulnerable voice, whose overwhelming power stems from its position as the mouthpiece of the everyman.

Before Atzmon blows a chorus of huge power and tenderness, Wyatt reaches the pained heart of exclusion as he warbles Laura and What's New? and "those whose lives are lonely too" in Billy Strayhorn's Lush Life.

The rich string framework offered to Ellington's In A Sentimental Mood suddenly cracks and Atzmon blows alone, hovering over the melody like some giant-winged eagle. The strings shimmer with amazement as Wyatt - his voice shaking with astonishment - sings time and again "At last I am free, I can hardly see in front of me" over Julian Rowlands' bandoneon.

Lullaby for Irene - an elegy by Ros Stephen and Alfie Benge - is especially moving, beginning with a shuddering horn and mournful strings. Atzmon's beautifully deep, liquid clarinet chorus coupled with Wyatt's vocal completes a rare fusion of incongruous sounds.

The final track is his version of What A Wonderful World, a song made famous and iconic by the first great superstar of jazz, Louis Armstrong. Wyatt sings it filled with the optimism of life and an bizarre balance of intimacy and detachment.

And when he tells you through the lyrics that "I hear babies crying and watch them grow/They'll see much more than I'll ever know,"w you believe him. As Atzmon supplements the ordinary words with the extraordinary eloquence of his chorus the album ends at the zenith of melody.

A strangely compelling album is ...For The Ghosts Within, and one not easily forgotten.

Amazon.co.uk



The Jazz Breakfast: CD review: Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble

CD review: Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble

http://thejazzbreakfast.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/cd-review-gilad-atzmon-the-orient-house-ensemble/

The Tide Has Changed
(World Village 450015)

The Orient House Ensemble, named with Gilad Atzmon’s usual challenging flair, after the Palestinian people’s headquarters in Jerusalem, is ten years old. The only other original member of the band is pianist Frank Harrison, but the band’s music – a winningly compulsive mix of the Middle Eastern and jazz influences – has remained consistent from the start.

Consistent, but constantly developing and becoming more finely interwoven.

Listen to the 11-minute title track of this disc and those elements are there, the Middle Eastern ones especially in Atzmon’s saxophone articulation with its microtonal phrasing, but its just so cohesive now. And is there a saxophonist working in the UK today, or a band in fact, that is able quite to work up this kind of intensity?

But there is also such acute attention to the gorgeousness of the sounds. As Atzmon adds that growl, and launches into those lightning runs, followed by high, held screams at the top of his instrument, Harrison, bassist Yaron Stavi and drummer Eddie Hick churning beneath, so are added rich, held chords of Tali Atzmon’s voice. And then we are back down to a funky bass and drums for Harrison to start building up the tension all over again.

There are heaps more joyous moments like this on this album, including a great version of Ravel’s Bolero, or Bolero At Sunrise as he calls it, Atzmon bringing a fresh lyricism to this most familiar of melodies against a lovely, sinuous groove.

And So Have We shows Atzmon’s rich tone on soprano, while London To Gaza features the multi-layered pleasures on its melodic statement of Atzmon’s saxophone line shadowed by his own accordion with Stavi’s bowed bass underneath, before it morphs into a measured and Coltraneish slow-burner, Atzmon again stressing that Middle Eastern saxophone tone and articulation. It’s a saxophonic tour de force.

And of course, humour is never far away from the seriousness – from the MC-led opening to the oompah madness of We Laugh.

The band, surely one of the hardest working in jazz, is currently nearing the end of a three month tour and comes to the Live Box at The Drum in Birmingham on Sunday evening. It starts at 7.45pm, and you can find out more at www.the-drum.org.uk