Re: Exile - Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble CD Review

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

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On 18/05/2003 at 18:24 Eliezer Kaplan wrote:

>"Gilad Atzmon is probably the most exciting phenomenon to
>have hit the international jazz world since Eric Dolphy and John
Coltrane."
>
>More exciting than the entire AACM, specifically the Art Ensemble,
Braxton,
>Threadgill?
>More exciting than Zorn, Bailey, Lacy?
>More exciting than Keith Tippett? Hugh Hopper, Elton Dean?

Without implying any disrespect, but none of the above would even remotely
qualify as being in the same sort of league as 'Trane and Dolphy by any
stretch of the imagination, neither as innovators, improvisers, nor in the
technical perfection department. Atzmon, OTOH, clearly is, on all counts. I
was convinced he was getting _very_ close the first time I heard him and
his Orient House Ensemble 2 or 3 years ago, and their first two albums were
nothing short of breathtaking. With this third album, there's just no
getting away from it that he's arrived there. While he's still pretty much
unknown over on your side of the pond, his reputation in Europe is fast
approaching legendary already. Those you cite are fine players and great
intellectual musicians. But Atzmon goes way beyond that, his music is music
with real guts and blood, soul and spirit, fire and passion, stuff that
makes your hair stand on end and sends shivers down your spine, music that
reaches deep into your heart and soul, while always remaining immensely
accessible.

>Though I've yet to hear the CD, somehow, I doubt it.

That, of course, is your priviledge.


Richard
"Renaissance Man"


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