Londonjazz CD Review - Songs of the Metropolis

http://londonjazz.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/cd-review-gilad-atzmon-orient-house.html

Gilad Atzmon & the Orient House Ensemble - Songs of the Metropolis
(World Village 450024. CD review by Chris Parker)

For this, his seventh album with ‘the hardest-working band in jazz’, the Orient House Ensemble (which has been working and touring the world together for twelve years now), Gilad Atzmon has taken as his theme the ability, as he sees it, of the song to ‘counter detachment and alienation’ courtesy of the idea that ‘each city ha[s] a melody, a resonance, a bell, an instrument, a voice’, and that, consequently, ‘beauty is perhaps the last form of spiritual resistance’ to the contemporary malaise for which ‘the planet weeps’.

His band – keyboard player Frank Harrison, bassist Yaron Stavi and drummer Eddie Hick – has the ability to transform itself from a hard-driving acoustic jazz ensemble (their version of ‘Scarborough Fair’, for instance, develops into an almost Coltraneish polyrythmic thrash) into an elegant but punchy fusion band at the flick of a switch, so the various atmospheres Atzmon wishes to conjure up (Paris’s ‘love’, Tel Aviv’s ‘tragedy’, Buenos Aires’ ‘pathos’, Vienna’s sweet charm etc.) are all unfussily evoked by a series of compositions that, while they ostensibly bring out his more contemplative side (and his clarinet playing, in particular, is wonderfully expressive and considered), contain all the steeliness and controlled passion and power customarily associated with Atzmon’s music.

Harrison is all lyrical fluency one minute, operating on acoustic piano, then colouring and shading the next by resorting to everything from Fender Rhodes to glockenspiel. Hicks and Stavi are characteristically alert and vigorous throughout, and overall this is a hard-hitting but wide-ranging set from an admirably tight and robust band led by one of the most charismatic and focused reedsmen on the planet.

The Times - Gilad Atzmon: Songs of the Metropolis, Album Review

 

John Bungey
January 19 2013

"It’s perhaps ironic that the Israeli-born saxophonist who has fused sounds of the Middle East with US jazz so skilfully should make an album lamenting the loss of local musical identities in a globalised world. Defying bland homogeneity, the saxophonist has composed tunes for his band, the Orient House Ensemble, to celebrate the musical traits of eight cities. Among them, Manhattan is brisk and funky; Buenos Aires is dark and smouldering; and decadent Berlin has clearly had one too many to drink. But it may well be the inspired detour to little Scarborough and its fair that draws the biggest cheers out on tour." (World Village; out Mon)

Irish Times-Songs of the Metropolis (4 Stars)

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/theticket/2013/0118/1224328981494.html

****

Gilad Atzmon

CORMAC LARKIN

Songs of the Metropolis World Village ****

This dissident Israeli musician, philosopher and sometime Blockhead seems condemned, if only by his own principles, to wander the world playing music. Atzmon is a thoughtful and articulate opponent of Zionism in his books and articles, so when he picks up one of his many horns it’s clear that there’s more than just music at stake. On Songs of the Metropolis, Atzmon makes a virtue of his peripatetic existence, offering eight fine original compositions inspired by cities around the world where he has performed, from Paris and Berlin to Buenos Aires and his native Tel Aviv. But perhaps the standout is the album’s only cover, an energetic reworking of Scarborough Fair, in which Atzmon and the excellent pianist Frank Harrison do to the old parsley-sage tune what John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner did to My Favourite Things. gilad.co.uk

Amazon.co.uk

BBC Review - Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble Songs of the Metropolis Review

A calmer-than-usual concept set from the virtuoso saxophonist.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/cbzb

Martin Longley 2013-01-15

Reedsman Gilad Atzmon is renowned for his virtuoso, high-speed, post-bop attack, and also for his equally hyperactive personality. This concept album explores a highly alternative resting ground, where nearly every song is a ballad, and even the occasionally faster-paced tunes emit an aura of relative calm.

Atzmon’s concept is to dedicate his pieces to individual cities, inevitably conjuring an atmosphere of evocative cinematic suggestion. Although this Israeli wit has long resided in London, that’s one of the obvious cities missing from the tracklisting. Instead, Atzmon skirts from Berlin to Buenos Aires, and from Scarborough to Somewhere in Italy.

Some of his followers might find this album frustratingly reflective, but Atzmon should be commended for changing his pace, and opening up his compositional space. It’s an imaginative side-step, and there are already many other Atzmon recordings that capture his fully accelerated soloing skills.

Romantic introversion is at play on Paris, with a clarinet calm that could have passed through the lips of Acker Bilk. There’s a lounge bar easiness, but no blandness on show. Dappled piano and brushed snare and cymbals maximise the mood. All of this dwells within a big ballroom acoustic sound-space.

Tel Aviv has a loping funk feel, with Atzmon wielding a flighty soprano saxophone. A doomy piano chord opens Buenos Aires, sombre and slow as Atzmon exudes his breathy horn purr. The luminous gossamer of Vienna hangs over a delicately traipsing procession. We’re back in that ballroom again...

Scarborough is a variation on Scarborough Fair, doubtless inspired by that town’s jazz festival. Atzmon has pointedly chosen this as an alternative to London. A steady pulse emerges, and this is one of the album’s brisker tracks. It’s followed by the exceedingly melancholic Moscow, one of the album’s most visual pieces. Berlin only warrants two minutes, but it’s the most compressed spurt of all, a bierkeller sing-along, spiralling almost out of control. This is just a glimpse of the usual Atzmon lunatic ebullience.

4 Stars on FT - Gilad Atzmon & the Orient House Ensemble: Songs of the Metropolis

ft.com

By Mike Hobart

The saxophonist/clarinettist eloquently mixes modal jazz, Middle Eastern scales and funky beats

Gilad Atzmon’s seventh album with his long-running quartet is a peon to a recent past, when urban spaces belonged to the people who lived in them, and cities had distinct emotional characters.

The saxophonist/clarinettist portrays the idiosyncrasies with a masterly blend of controlled passion and sharp focus, eloquently mixing modal jazz, Middle Eastern scales and funky beats.

“Vienna” is captured with a charming waltz, tragedy-haunted “Tel Aviv” with a funk-driven mash-up and “Buenos Aires” with a haunting, stately theme that gains pathos from an echo of accordion.

Gilad Atzmon & the Orient House Ensemble

Songs of the Metropolis

(World Village)

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