GILAD ATZMON: FROM SCALA TO WEMBLEY

London Jazza festival is behind us.  It was stressful and we took a massive risk, but it turned into a great success.  For some of us, it was the most musically meaningful event we have ever participated in.

It occurred to me a while back that as far as Palestinian affairs are concerned, the tide has indeed changed -- The struggle of the Palestinian people has now become a part of a Western collective conscience. We are a mass movement becoming increasingly aware of itself. At our last week's first Jazza Festival, leading artists of all genres united together with an audience from all walks of life to side with the Palestinians.  In the Scala London, we stood together, protesting against Israeli brutality.  Funds were raised for the Free Palestine Movement, an organization that challenges many aspects of the occupation, and will soon bring the all important question of the 'Right of Return' right to the heart of Tel Aviv.  

Jazza is an event though, which is above political agendas: like the peace activists on board the Mavi Marmara, we have a humanitarian mission to accomplish. We are artists who very simply believe that beauty is hope. And we know that it is our duty to depict an alternative reality through our music.   

Naturally enough, we were supported by every possible Palestinian and Arab media outlet: The Palestine Telegraph rallied with us, as did the Palestine Chronicle. Middle East Online covered the production process and covered the event. Press TV promoted us and sent a team to cover the event.

We were supported by the dissident network too: the SWP featured us on its front page, as did The Truth Seeker, Salem News, The People Voice, Uprooted Palestinian and others.  

So far, so usual. But here is the interesting bit - even the mainstream media joined us. The Guardian made us their choice of the week, followed by a rave (4 star) post-event critique.  The London Metro highlighted the festival for its readers and BBC London asked me to the studio to talk about the event and other Palestinian issues. The BBC World Service also sent a journalist along to cover the event.

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Ramzy Baroud : The Tide Has Changed is a musical lesson in humanity

Gilad Atzmon: The OHE and myself are receiving some amazing reviews at the moment but this one is really precious to me. Ramzy Baroud is a person whom I totally admire, as a writer, a humanist, an intellect and a true spirit of resistance.

Ramzy always manages to touch me. He has a unique capacity to communicate sense and humanism while being poetic.

I would also use this opportunity and urge you all to support Palestine Chronicle--one of the most important Palestinian media outlets available for us all.

Ramzy Baroud : The Tide Has Changed is a
 musical lesson in humanity

http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16339

If one tried to fit music compositions into an equivalent literary style, Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble’s latest release would come across as a most engaging political essay: persuasive, argumentative, rational, original, imaginative and always unfailingly accessible.

But unlike the rigid politicking of politicians and increasingly Machiavellian style of today’s political essayists, the band’s latest work is also unapologetically humanistic.

Those familiar with the writings of Gilad Atzmon—the famed ex-Israeli musician and brilliant saxophone player, now based in London – can only imagine that Gaza was the place that occupied his thoughts as he composed The Tide Has Changed.

The title track, an 11-minute melody, transmits the host of emotions that engulfed many of us when Israel began mercilessly pounding the resilient and hostage Gaza Strip in late 2008.

The Tide Has Changed by Gilad Atzmon

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Zimos News: Jazz activism

Gilad Atzmon and the Orient House Ensemble 2010 tour

by Jonathon Blakeley

The Orient House Ensemble are currently touring the UK, promoting their amazing new album – ‘The tide has changed’. The following is a review of a performance, at St Ives Jazz Club, Cornwall, on Friday 15th of October 2010. The current OHE line up is

1. Gilad Atzmon – Saxophones, Clarinets, Vocals
2. Eddie Hick – Drums
3. Frank Harrison – Piano
4. Yaron Stavi – Double Bass, Vocals

Serpent charmer

The set started with a Gilad announcing that they were going to play their new album, ‘The tide has changed’, and commenced with the opening track ‘Dry fear’, warming up the crowd with his serpent charmer spell.

The next track required a change of instrument, and for this one Gilad chose his saxophone. He quickly realized that he had left his sax strap up in his hotel room and asked whether someone would retrieve his strap, as he could not play without it. This accident allowed him to improvise and free associate with words. With the strap recovered, a cheer went up from the crowd and the set kicked off with the title track – ‘the tide has changed’ – intense, frenzied and original.

“Obviously I like playing the music but it’s not all about the music, it is Palestine that I am also really interested in. In helping to free the Palestinian People that is very important too…”

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Guardian review-Jazza festival (4 Stars)

Jazza festival - review

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/oct/14/jazza-festival-review

The two-day Jazza festival has at its heart the aim of reminding Londoners about the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, and raising aid money. But political rhetoric was hardly heard in almost four hours of music at the opening show, which featured a score of players drawing on traditions from Palestinian oud music to jazzy country-rock, Geordie folk and American Songbook classics. If this diverse concert had a unifying humanitarian thread, it wasn't delivered in finger-wagging harangues, but in the music's sadness, joy, humour and compassion.

The show's principal hook was the release of The Ghosts Within, the new album from Robert Wyatt, that downbeat and creatively political genius. The record was showcased in the concert's long finale, with subtle settings of Wyatt originals and classic Broadway love songs from the Sigamos String Quartet's violinist/arranger Ros Stephens. Wyatt himself doesn't play live now, but his chosen representative, Cleveland Watkiss, gave an accomplished and gracefully moving account of the same repertoire, with Gilad Atzmon's quicksilver sax and clarinet improvisations gliding around him.

Palestinian singer Nizar Al-Issa opened the show with a stirring performance of songs from Ramallah, his voice vibrating and tingling between pitches like the strings of his oud. Vocalist Sarah Gillespie – a UK-residing, US-raised songwriter with a country singer's penetrating yodel, forceful delivery and lyrical wit – performed eloquently with Atzmon, on saxes, clarinet and accordion, though her vocal power could have used a little reining-in at times.

The Unthank Sisters furnished the evening with whisper-quiet subtleties, at one point performing without mics – and their finale on Wyatt's Sea Song was hypnotic. Watkiss and Atzmon's Orient House Ensemble closed the show with The Ghosts Within. The album's title track, an anthem to the neglected, was delivered with sonorous poise by Atzmon's singer wife, Tali.

Amazon.co.uk

Guardian Review: 5 stars For The Ghost Within

Robert Wyatt/Ros Stephen/Gilad Atzmon: For the Ghosts Within - review

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The Ghosts within by Gilad Atzmon

Robert Wyatt, that most eloquently lackadaisical of jazz-loving English troubadours, has made some unforgettable albums over his long solo career, but this will rank among the frontrunners. Mingling jazz standards such as Lush Life, In a Sentimental Mood and Round Midnight with a scattering of originals, and imaginatively arranged by violinist Ros Stephen for the poetic Gilad Atzmon's alto sax and clarinet and a string ensemble, it strikes a balance between tradition-observing musicality and Wyatt's knack for getting to the painful or joyous heart of things while sounding as if he has just dropped in off the street. From the moment Atzmon's vibrant alto curls around Wyatt's matter-of-fact delivery of Laura, through the microtonal clarinet intro to a vocal line mixing falsetto sounds with guttural contemplation on Lullaby for Irena, to the Sergeant Pepper-like quirkiness of electronics and vocal whimsy on Maryan, the session barely misses a beat. Wyatt offhandedly whistles his way through Round Midnight, plays movingly muted trumpet on Lush Life, and comes close to Louis Armstrong's Wonderful World for gratefully dazzled simplicity.



Robert Wyatt & Gilad Atzmon in Haaretz

Haaretz published today a massive interview with Robert Wyatt and myself. It is a very interesting piece. I may also mention that the Israeli paper didn't censor me. It let me say it all (Jews, Judaism, Jewishness, Jewish left, Zionism, Israeli collective barbarism etc')

http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/haunted-by-ghosts-1.319263

Haunted by ghosts

Self-proclaimed anti-Israeli saxophonist Gilad Atzmon and prog rock legend Robert Wyatt have joined forces to make musical magic and "political noise"

By Yaron Frid

In 1963 a baby was born in Israel. In 1972 a man fell from the third floor (or the fourth - views are divided ) in England in the middle of the night. Both of them took off on the wings of music, and life would one day organize a surprising encounter between them.

The Ghosts within by Gilad Atzmon

This is a sad story with a jolting soundtrack made of the howl of a saxophone and the wail of a clarinet. It's a story of displaced persons who have no other country, featuring war criminals, Nazi-hunters and God in a cameo role, tempered by large daubs of irony and a few crumbs of hope.

Morning. Rain. Rail strike. Soho, London. Who is the huge chuckling fellow in the Italian cafe who is polishing off a schnitzel sandwich (washed down with tea ) and welcomes me with comments like "There is no light at the end of the Israeli tunnel"? Or, "I think there is something untenable, simply untenable in the fact that the Jews, who suffered so much racial discrimination, should establish a state that is founded on race laws." And, topping the charts, "I am dead against the existence of the Jewish state." It's still early in the morning, let me remind you. I-am-dead-against-the-existence-of-the-Jewish-state-and-pass-the-sweetener-please. Good morning to you, too, Gilad Atzmon.

The fact that the cafe is across from Ronnie Scott's famous jazz club offers a subtle hint about Atzmon's identity. He is one of the most acclaimed and in-demand jazz musicians in the world and he only enhances his glory - or totally destroys it, it depends whom you ask - when his mouth isn't otherwise occupied with a saxophone (or a schnitzel ).

Atzmon says he is dealing not with politics, but with ethics. Maybe in his case it really isn't just a matter of semantics. Or cosmetics. But we're here to talk about music. And about beauty. "This beauty which simply spills out of you," he says, "effortlessly, unconsciously, in the most wonderful moments of creativity, and when that happens you understand that you are only the carrier of the spirit, of something bigger than you, over which you have absolutely no control. I have no connection with that beauty, I just eat schnitzels. I am only the messenger. I don't look for the beauty, the beauty finds me and through me finds its way into the world."

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To listen to Gilad Atzmon & the OHE on BBC Radio 3

The  show was recorded in Ronnie Scott's London a week ago.  Also,  a long  interview with Jes Nelson

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer

Availability:

5 days left to listen

Jez Nelson presents Gilad Atzmon's Orient House Ensemble in concert at Ronnie Scott's during the band's 10th anniversary tour. Alongside Atzmon on reeds and accordion are pianist Frank Harrison, Yaron Stavi on double bass and drummer Eddie Hick.

Amazon.co.uk

Mamoon Alabbasi: London's Jazza sings in tune with Palestine

Gilad Atzmon: . Jazza Festival was an incredible experience. I will write about it soon. Here is the first review by Mamoon Alabbasi, Middle East Online

The 'Unthanks' Sisters singing (photo by Tali Atzmon)

 
London's Jazza sings in tune with Palestine

 
Artists from across cultural and music genre divides unite in festival for Palestinians.

London's 'Jazza Music Festival' kicked off Tuesday with a number of artists performing free of charge to help raise aid for the occupied Palestinian territories and highlight their plight.

The event offered a mix of music genres that crossed both cultural as well as generational divides, where a diverse audience enjoyed tunes from classic Arabic oud to a touch of contemporary Palestinian hip-hop passing through styles of jazz and into a melodic portrait of England's north east.

The evening began with warm oud tunes of Palestinian artist Nizar Al-Issa, a traditional genre of music that is a favourite generally with older Arabs, but nevertheless still captures the imagination of younger generations.

This was followed by a passionate performance that is customary of singer-songwriter Sarah Gillespie, which included my personal favourite 'Million Moons' and a number of new songs that will feature in her new album, which expected to be released in January.

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Tonight BBC Jazz on 3, Jez Nelson presents Gilad Atzmon's Orient House Ensemble

Tonight  at  23:15  we will be playing The Tide Has Changed on BBC Radio 3 (75 min)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00v4n85

Jez Nelson presents Gilad Atzmon's Orient House Ensemble in concert at Ronnie Scott's during the band's 10th anniversary tour. Alongside Atzmon on reeds and accordion are pianist Frank Harrison, Yaron Stavi on double bass and drummer Eddie Hick.

Great news. Amazon dropped the price of our new Album to £8.99.

Amazon.co.uk

We have received some some very good reviews  last week:

…this blistering, beautiful set…a fluid, hypnotic, optimistic blending of sounds from North Africa, the Arabian peninsula, John Surman and Charlie Parker, resulting in a multicultural balm of Gilad to soothe all aching souls.
Andew Male, Mojo, October 2010.

The vivacity, urgency and spontaneity of the best contemporary jazz spurs him always  John Fordham, The Guardian.

Spirituality and time-bending alto-sax virtuosity Mike Hobart Financial Times (4 stars)

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Gilad Atzmon: Wagner Again

Oi vey, an Israeli orchestra plans to play the music of this meshigine Wagner, whom  Hitler loved so much.

Wagner’s music is considered taboo in Israel, it is years since he made it to top 40’s in the Jewish state. Wagner  also held views that are far from being popular amongst Jews.  He once wrote that Jews were only capable of producing money-making music and not works of art. I guess that  Israelis do not like meshiges with an astute reading of the socio-economy  of the show business.

Wagner’s great-granddaughter Katharina had planned to visit Israel this week to officially invite the orchestra to perform the music at a Wagner festival in Bayreuth in southern Germany.  This  Shikze seems to believe in reconciliation and harmony.  She told the London Guardian that she wanted the Israeli orchestra to play at the German festival in an attempt to “heal wounds,”. What a silly move, once wounds of the past are healed, nothing would be left for the Jews to moan about. 

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