Exile - Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble CD Review

[R.A.S. <richards...>]

Alas I'm getting behind yet again due to yet another bout of a week or so
of having been bed-ridden, but at last I've at least got a review of Gilad
Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble's latest and monumental, indeed
historical album, "Exile", ready. Should also be available on my web site
later tonight or tomorrow (http://www.rainlore.demon.co.uk/Jewish.html ,
http://www.rainlore.demon.co.uk/GiladAtzmon&TheOrientHouseEns-Exile.html ).


Richard
"Renaissance Man"



Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble - Exile


More and more, the British media - mainstream general, national, as well as
specialist musical, are hailing Gilad Atzmon as the greatest thing ever to
have emerged on the British jazz scene. For once, they are being modest,
even conservative. Gilad Atzmon is probably the most exciting phenomenon to
have hit the international jazz world since Eric Dolphy and John Coltrane.
"Exile", the latest album by Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble,
featuring Reem Kelani & Dhafer Youssef, is more than ample testimony to
this.
It is without a doubt the most exhilerating, inspired and innovative jazz
album in some three decades. A fusion of post-bop, swing, Sephardic,
Ladino,
Palestinian, Arabic, klezmer and Balkan, "Exile" is "world jazz" at its
very
finest.

This is jazz in its purest form. Music with edge, plenty of it, music
arising out of strong, deeply felt emotions, out of oppression, and also a
reaction to this; out of anger and frustration, out of deep love and a deep
longing for justice and peace. All the very ingredients that made jazz what
it was in the first place. Gilad Atzmon has achieved a full-blown
renaissance of the original spirit of jazz over the course of his so far
three albums with his Orient House Ensemble, something that has been absent
for too long. The previous albums, the self-titled "Gilad Atzmon & The
Orient
House Ensemble" and "Nostalgico", each an outstanding achievement in its
own
right, fresh and exciting, refreshing and just, well, brilliant, could be
seen, in the light of "Exile", to have been preparing the ground, giving
notice of things to come. For on "Exile", the phenomenon that is Atzmon
raises his music to yet another level.

Of course, Gilad Atzmon is a highly political artist, and his music is
driven by his strong, sincerely and deeply held political convictions. But,
whether one agrees, sympathizes, or vehemently disagrees with his politics,
the music is the thing and ultimately has to stand, or fall, on its own,
and needless to say, it stands. Tall. If the political sub-text interests
you, to paraphrase Atzmon himself, fine, if not, equally fine, just enjoy
the music. No matter how strongly one might feel about the politics, to
ignore or reject music of this calibre purely because of disapproval of the
politics would be akin to cultural vandalism.

"Exile" blends Jewish and Palestinian/Arabic music and highlights their
commonalities, and thereby the commonalities between Jews and Arabs, which
as always are far greater than the differences, and also celebrates those
little differences. Atzmon's aim is to bring people closer together, to
promote greater understanding and mutual respect, to break down and remove
the artificial and unnecessary barriers between Jews and Arabs and the two
cultures that not only for the most part co-existed in perfect harmony but
co-evolved so closely and collaborated creatively for so long. With
"Exile",
he seeks to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinian people, drawing
parallels to the Jewish experience. It is, in its way, a desperate and
angry
outburst, shouting 'This madness has got to stop, we all have to re-learn
to
live together in peace again!'

Gilad Atzmon's prodigeous chops and immense improvisational prowess alone
would long have been sufficient to secure a formidable international
reputation. His outstanding voice on clarinet as well as saxes, lyrical as
well as passionate, often, on sax, reminiscent of Paul Desmond and also
showing influences such as Trane and Cannonball Adderley, has been honed
ever more finely and is a further huge and exceptional asset. On "Exile",
Atzmon plays with a tremendous emotional power, intensity and passion,
sometimes reminding one of Gato Barbieri at the height of his powers, now
angry, even furious, now wailing in an agony of weltschmerz, then soaring
extatically, floating, gliding along lyrically, seductively. However, his
achievement of re-imbibing jazz with the socio-cultural and political
spirit
that appeared to have pretty much gone with the death of Trane goes well
beyond securing a mere great reputation for Gilad Atzmon. It makes him
something immensely greater and no doubt assures him a prominent place in
the
history of jazz.

For "Exile", Gilad Atzmon expanded the Orient House Ensemble from its usual
quartet format to include Romano Viazzani, an accordionist of Italian
extraction, Romanian violinist Marcel Mamaliga, featured special guests,
the superlative Palestinian singer Reem Kelani and Tunisian singer and oud
star Dhafer Youssef, as well as guest contributions by Israeli-born multi-
instrumentalist Koby Israelite on accordion, Gabi Fortuna on Romanian
flute,
and Peter Watson on accordion. The core of the Orient House Ensemble has
undergone a personnel change with Israeli bassist Yaron Stavi taking over
from Oly Hayhurst, otherwise remaining unchanged and consisting of Atzmon
himself, percussionist/drummer Asaf Sirkis and pianist/keyboardist Frank
Harrison. Most of these performers are living in some form of exile or
other,
some self-imposed, some enforced, dispossessed. While the core Orient House
ensemble has long been probably the tightest band on the contemporary jazz
scene, the close empathy extends fully to the guest artists and weaves its
usual magic. Special mention however surely is due Frank Harrison who is
fast
maturing into an outstandingly fine jazz pianist in the finest tradition of
the likes of McCoy Tyner and, I dare say, Art Tatum.

The hybrid of Jewish and Palestinian/Arabic music on the one hand and jazz
on
the other that Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble present on "Exile"
is appealing to connoisseurs of all these individual types of music at
once,
and indeed will be appreciated by any genuine afficionado of truly great
music. It transcends "genre" and individual ethnicity to emerge as
something
that's very much bigger than any of these. "Exile" is driven music, with an
intensity and passion and depth that make it utterly compelling, even
irresistable. Charm and wit complete the magic.

Gilad Atzmon originals account for six of the nine tracks on this album and
as ever testify to his great melodic gifts. Influences of Piazzolla are
more
evident than previously. A further track, "Ouz", is co-written with
Yochanan
Zaray. The remaining two are traditional Palestinian and Ladino,
respectively.
The opener, "Dal'Ouna - On The Return", is a traditional Palestinian mini
song-cycle, with the lyrics of the intro by Monzer El-Dajani, sung by
Palestinian singer-extraordinaire Reem Kelani. A deeply moving telling of
the Palestinian people's dream of 'return', its parallels with the Jewish
dream of 'return' are inescapable and tragic. The simple, elegant
arrangement
and the superb vocals by Kelani and Atzmon's here Middle-Eastern style
clarinet are spine-tingling. "Al-Quds" (the Arabic name, 'The Holy', for
Yerushalayim) uses the Israeli 'anthem' of the seven-day war in an Arabic
interpretation. The original Hebrew lyrics about the return of the Jewish
people to Jerusalem have been replaced with Arabic lyris from an original
poem by Mahmoud Darwish, dealing with the identical longing for homeland.
Again, Reem Kelani's passionate vocals are outstanding and supremely offset
as well as complemented by Gilad Atzmon's empassioned alto. At ten minutes,
"Al-Quds" is the longest track on this album, with some superb extended
improvs. "Jenin" is inspired by an old Yiddish song about the burning down
of a shtetl in a pogrom and applies this context to the destruction of the
Jenin Refugee Camp in April 2002. Dark and sombre, plaintive at times yet
always lyrical and restrained, Atzmon and pianist Harrison keep the
listener
spellbound with their special brand of magic. Partly borrowing from another
Hebraic tune from the acclaimed Israeli film Salach Shabati which tells the
story of established Zionist settlers' cruely to new Jewish settlers from
Arab countries, "Ouz" applies this theme to immigrants joyfully colonizing
new land while ignoring its indigenous population. The music here takes a
lighter turn, but in a satirical manner, even touching on the ironic.
"Orient
House", like the band, takes its name from the East Jerusalem offices of
the
Palestinian Authority. Klezmer and Balkan inspired, this is a lively piece
with a very catchy theme and soaring improvs. "Land of Canaan" could be
described as a kind of Sephardi tango, haunting and sophisticated, with
Atzmon's improvs floating, soaring stratospherically at times. The title
track, "Exile", is a traditional Ladino tune given the Orient House
treatment. Reflective, even somewhat grave and mournful, it is full of
unfulfilled longing. Easily the lightest and liveliest track, "La Côte
Méditerranée" features the outstanding voice and oud of Tunesian star
Dhafer
Youssef. The appropriately titled "Epilogue" provides the closer. Somewhat
Piazzolla-esque, it's a haunting, highly memorable tune that's hard to get
out of your head. Appended to this, after a few seconds of silence, is a
brief, closing snippet of a folkish tune with celebratory ululations, the
latter provided by Tali Atzmon.

As previous, this album is of the "CD-Plus" type, with multimedia content
in
addition to the audio track, including a bonus video track of "Epilogue".
The
well designed album sleeve is of the folding card type, the liner notes are
brief and to the point. Included are English translations of the lyrics of
songs. Both the booklet and the multimedia presentation are generously
endowed with photographs.

Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble's "Exile" is a stunning,
mesmerising
album. The flow of ideas seems just inexhaustible and unstoppable. This is
jazz as it hasn't been played in decades, incandescent and incendiary. As
if all this wasn't enough yet, to Atzmon has to go the further credit also
of finally taking Jewish music firmly into the mainstream; nothing and
nobody has raised general awareness and appreciation of Jewish music as
much or as prominently, as Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble and
their
spectacular music, at any rate in the British context. "Exile" is also,
deservedly, proving to be a remarkably popular album, even attaining the
number one position at the Virgin Megastore in London's Oxford Street in
April. No mean feat this in itself. Released on Enja at the end of
February,
"Exile" has already been nominated for the prestigeous BBC Jazz Award 2003.
A better, more appropriate nomination to these awards there couldn't be.
Gilad Atzmon's "Exile" is a truly monumental album, and undoubtedly one of
the great milestone recordings of jazz. Grab it while you can, in years to
come the original release is destined to be a highly prized collectible
classic; but most of all, grab it for the beautiful music.



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