Jazz musicians from Israel aren't necessarily going to have Jewish or Middle Eastern influences in their music. Having a Tel Aviv or Jerusalem address doesn't automatically mean that an Israeli jazz musician is going to sound any different from a jazz musician who has spent his/her entire life in Boston or St. Louis. That said, some Israeli/Jewish jazz musicians have enriched their work by incorporating elements of traditional Jewish and Middle Eastern music, and acoustic pianist
Yitzhak Yedid
is one of them.
Yedid
even featured an oud player extensively on his album
Suite in Five Movements
(the oud is a traditional Middle Eastern lute). There is no oud player on
Since My Soul Loved
, but
's appreciation of Middle Eastern music asserts itself nonetheless -- which is not to say that this 2007 date isn't jazz-oriented. Jazz is the album's main ingredient, although Jewish, Middle Eastern, Arabic, and North African musics are attractive influences along with avant-garde Euro-classical music. Some will describe
(which contains a 54-minute suite comprised of four movements) as mildly avant-garde jazz, while others will describe it as third steam or chamber jazz -- and some will say that it is world jazz. All of those terms are relevant to
, which finds
forming a quintet with violinist
Daniel Hoffman
, viola player
Galia Hai
, cellist
Jonathan Gotlibovich
, and acoustic bassist
Ora Boasson Horev
.
, in fact, is the only one on this album who isn't playing some type of string instrument, and that abundance of string instruments adds to the disc's Euro-classical/chamber appeal. This cerebral outing is not easy to absorb, but listeners who have some patience and aren't afraid of abstraction or complexity will find a lot to enjoy on
-- which isn't quite as essential as
but is still a rewarding effort from this Israeli pianist. ~ Alex Henderson