Land of Milk, Honey and Much Wonderful Music 

Israel is a tiny country that is brimful with musical excellence. Tel Aviv buzzes with a thriving local jazz scene.  And, when it comes to classical virtuosi, Israel is home to seemingly more per capita than just about anywhere else in the world.  Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zuckerman and Gil Shaham are just three amongst the many contemporary Israeli greats who have established careers that take them to play with leading International orchestras at concert halls and festivals in every corner of the globe.  I have been fortunate enough to see each of them in concert at different times, both in London and elsewhere.   

The national musical treasure is the Israel Philharmonic, which never sounds better than in its acoustically excellent home – the Mann Auditorium.  The IPO has regularly performed at the Proms and elsewhere in London during its regular overseas tours.  If the IPO aren’t playing then there are other orchestras from towns and cities across the country.  There are enough quality musicians to make up more orchestras than there are halls in which they might perform.

In the wake of Glasnost and Perestroika, there was a mass emigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union into Israel.  Amongst these new immigrants were graduates of the many wonderful Soviet musical academies.  Those who were unable to get a gig with the established orchestras have done what they can to adapt.  Back in the mid-nineties I came across a string quartet busking on Dizengoff, one of Tel Aviv’s main thoroughfares which is a cross between Oxford Street and Charing Cross Road.  While traffic trundled past them and crowds of pedestrians looked in shop windows, a few gathered to listen to a terrific performance of Borodin’s String Quartet No 2 (in D Major).  The four ageing Russian maestros were a long way from St Petersburg, yet the exuberance and passion of their playing would have done the Mariinsky proud.  They were as good as any quartet that I have heard elsewhere, even with the addition of the ambient sounds of a busy main road that were not included in the composer’s original score. 

In more recent times, each Saturday morning, there is a string trio that busks on the Tayelet – Tel Aviv’s glorious promenade.  I suspect that this is not the same as the 90’s Dizengoff group minus a second violin.  The trio’s choice of repertoire is not aimed at the purist Borodin fan.  In amongst Beethoven, Bocharini and Mozart trios there are selections from ‘Cabaret’, ‘West Side Story’ and even The Beatles.  A few weeks back I managed to find a seat on the bench that is next to their pitch and happily listened for an hour or more while I wrote a post for this blog! 

Over the past couple of years I have been regularly exploring Tel Aviv’s jazz scene.  There are numerous venues in town, albeit that some also play host to other musical genres.  Periodically, muscular tenor saxist, Shlomi Goldenberg, hosts a club at the atmospheric Hasimta Theatre in Old Jaffa.  Goldenberg’s playing is funky and edgy bowing in the direction of John Coltrane.  Last summer also he led a group playing live – and for free – in Ben Gurion park that backed a seemingly endless array of talented teenage vocalists performing standards with aplomb and individuality.  In addition to circling around contemporary jazz stylings, the truly original Keren Friedman is a vocalist who also fuses her repertoire with traditional Jewish religious musical references and influences. 

There are not yet too many Israelis who have followed in the footsteps of double-bass legend, Avishai Cohen, onto the major stages of the international Jazz scene.  However, talent is beginning to bubble up and sax playing composer and arranger, Eyal Vilner, made a recent visit ‘home’ from his New York base.  He took Shablul, a prominent club in the Nemal – the old port section of Tel Aviv – by storm.  Leading a big band comprising a talented bunch of locals through a ninety minute set of original numbers, the capacity crowd were on its feet at the end of the night.   

To my ears, much of current Israeli pop music is barely distinguishable from the contrived confections that inhabit the airwaves of other countries regularly represented at the Eurovision song contest.  Nevertheless, there is a lot of very interesting contemporary Israeli fusion music that might be filed in Western record stores in the ‘World Music’ sections.  And talking of record stores, no music fan visiting Tel Aviv should miss spending an hour or two at Third Ear Music located at the corner of Melech George and Dizengoff.  There are not too many equivalent record shops left in the UK, or even the States so my friends there tell me.  Third Ear is not a megastore; it’s quality not quantity that is on offer for the discerning fan who still enjoys buying music on disc in a bricks-and-mortar emporium. 

The ground floor offers pop and rock but the Aladdin’s cave is on the upper level.  Separate but contiguous sections containing Blues, Jazz, Classical and World Music are curated by the estimable and highly knowledgeable Ohad.  Last week, we spent a half an hour or more shooting the breeze and discussing all manner of musical matters while Ohad played albums by each of Taj Mahal and Don Byron.  The man has taste.  Seeking his recommendations, I picked up some fascinating contemporary Israeli albums, all of which I can highly recommend to those who enjoy music that doesn’t easily fit into any one category. 

Ravid Kahalani’s ‘Yemen Blues’ fuses Middle Eastern rhythms and beats played on oriental percussion instruments with an electric bass, violin and viola, trumpet and trombone.  Kahalani’s lyrics, written in a mixture of Arabic, Hebrew and French convey messages of peace. Outstanding tracks on the album include the infectious up tempo ‘Eli’ and the moody groove of ‘Min Kalbi’.  This is an album that I am going to be playing a lot!  

The Orchestra Andalous d’Israel was originally established in the Port of Ashdod in the 1960’s by immigrants from Morocco.  These days the ensemble includes a large Russian contingent.  The fifty or so musicians play an interesting array of both Western and Oriental instruments and largely perform original repertoire that combines a range of cultural influences.  The 2011 album, ‘Ashdod Yam’ is a tribute to the ensemble’s home town.  Predominantly composed by orchestra members, the music circumscribes an alluring marriage between the steppes and the Sahara often in the same piece; examples include Adam Bak’s ‘Tushiya Shenaz’ and Gamil Bak Tamburi’s ‘Longa Nahwand’.

I am still exploring the truly astonishing double album ‘Ahavot Olamim: Andalusian Hebrew Song from the Mahgreb to Jerusalem’ which would be worth a blog of its own, if not an entire series of blogs.  The landscape of the collection is drawn from the Andalusian Jewish musical traditional of Algeria and Morocco.  The rich and varied textures of the arrangements move from traditional North African instruments through layers of classical strings to jazz influenced tenor sax and trumpet.  The lyrical content is drawn from two thousand years of religious liturgy.

Mark Eliyahu was born in the hilly country of Dagestan.  The ethereal sound of ‘Voices of Judea’ is led by Eliyahu’s kamancha, a bowed instrument that originates in Azerbaijan and is complemented variously by an oud and percussion.  Eliyahu also contributes on other relatively little known stringed instruments.  The album was partly recorded in the curiously named Loozit Cave which gives the recordings mystical feel.  This fascinating mood music was inspired by the search for the magical garden in the mystical spaces in the desert of Judea from where some of the prophets of the bible emerged.

Israel, the land of milk and honey of Jewish scriptures, is also a land rich in music – new, old and in some cases a fusion of both.  Try some, you’ll enjoy it!

Borodin: String Quartets No 1 and 2 are played by the Haydn Quartet on a CD released by Naxos in 1994. Ravid Kahalani’s ‘Yemen Blues’ was released on CD by LGM/Global Lev in 2011. ‘Ashdod–Yam’ by Orchestra Andalous d’Israel under the direction of Shmuel Elbaz was released by Magda in 2006.  ‘Ahavot Olamim: Andalusian Hebrew Song from the Mahgreb to Jerusalem’ is by The New Jerusalem Orchestra with Rabbi Haim Louk and The Piyyut Ensemble of the Ben Zvi Institute, Artistic Directors Omer Avital and Ya’ir Harel; it was released in 2012 by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  Mark Eliyahu: Voices of Judea  is a CD released by Adama Music in 2005.

More about Third Ear at http://www.recordstoreday.com/Venue/4143