Jazz breaking news: Eli Degibri gets Soho swinging to Israeli-NYC bop
Friday, March 8, 2013
Several Israeli musicians have made a significant impact on American jazz in the last two decades.
Omer Avital, Amos Hoffman, Avi Lebovich and, of, course, the internationally acclaimed bassist Avishai Cohen all brought a surge of energy to the scene centred around New York’s much-loved Smalls club in the mid-1990s. Tenor/soprano saxophonist Eli Degibri (pictured left), resident in the Big Apple since 2002, builds compellingly on that platform. Like many of his aforementioned compatriots, his initial recordings were on the ever-alert Fresh Sound New Talent label and displayed a progressive approach to myriad traditions both in and outside of jazz’s broad church. Tonight Degibri is backed by a band that could easily qualify for star status – economic but deep-toned double bassist Barak Mori, firecracker drum prodigy Ofri Nehemya and the unerringly inventive pianist Aaron Goldberg – and makes a compelling case for his ongoing development as a leader, composer and soloist.
From the downbeat, the quartet hits the ground running, with Degibri’s bulky, concentrated sound on the tenor needing little assistance from the mic to fully resonate across the basement while the Mori-Nehemya axis moves enticingly around dynamic swing and a more static march time that keeps a foot in the blues in the manner of Blakey and Shorter at their early-60s hard bop peak. The latter is a primary reference throughout the evening but Degibri brings his own tristeza lyricism to originals like ‘Mika’, ‘Big Fish’ and ‘Painless’, all of which have a structural verve that configures heads and solos in anything but a predictable way.
Classical harmony and folk cadences pervade some of the arrangements but they are often applied with a vigour that makes them galvanise not pacify the music. For example, the use of Chopinesque chords to fashion a tightly controlled, jarring tension that daringly lingers, almost like a mist that won't clear, is a grand dramatic moment of the night. In 2010, Degibri recorded Israeli Song with Brad Mehldau, Ron Carter and Al Foster. If that whets the appetite, then so does the prospect of an album with this band.
– Kevin Le Gendre