In Harmony: the Kaufman Center Newsletter
Omer Avital’s Middle Eastern Afro-Jewish Blend of Chamber Jazz
To say that the music of Israeli composer, arranger and bassist Omer Avital is Middle Eastern is limiting. Although he grew up in Israel, both his ethnic background (Yemeni and Moroccan) and his current home (New York) factor prominently in the curious diversity of his sound. Avital’s compositions for his new ensemble, the Omer Avital Ensemble, draw on elements as diverse as the Judeo-Arabic music of Spain, tribal music of North Africa and the European classical tradition.
Avital came to music as a child while studying classical guitar at a conservatory in Israel. In high school he fell in love with jazz––with both its free spirit and improvisational challenge. He began experimenting with other instruments, eventually settling on the upright bass as his primary outlet. He continued to study classical composition and spent most of his time inventing jazz pieces.
Then he moved to New York while in his twenties. “This is where my real growth as a musician happened,” explained Avital recently. “I met people from so many different backgrounds who knew where they came from and embraced different traditions. It made me realize for the first time that I had my own background, and that I was influenced by it. These things are taken for granted until you have a context in which to put them.”
On January 10, Avital will premiere Song of A Land: Middle Eastern-Afro-Jewish Music at Merkin Concert Hall in what will also be the debut performance of his new ensemble. Song of a Land will feature 12 musicians ranging from a string quartet to an Israeli pianist to a Turkish clarinetist to Israeli saxophone and trumpet players and Avital on bass and oud (a pear-shaped Middle Eastern stringed instrument that looks like a guitar). Avital describes Song of a Land as “sort of classical in that it has a formal structure . . . it is an evening of music––a collection of stories that are all connected, and which all represent my life.” The piece opens with an introduction followed by an Israeli-Jewish meditation on themes, a lamentation and various other “stories” (Andalusian, Moroccan and Yemeni in nature) before ending with a festive North African/Middle Eastern rhythm sequence that he calls “tribal desert music.” Some of the piece is composed and much is improvised, though Avital hopes to blur the line between the two.
Avital shares the bill with Chicago-based pianist Ryan Cohan and his band, who will, by contrast, present original compositions steeped in swing from Cohan’s native Chicago––the City of Big Shoulders. The evening is appropriately titled Mideast Meets Midwest.
Click here for concert details.
This concert has been partially underwritten by Chamber Music America.
