Rethinking jazz and world music, the Israeli way

Two Israeli cultural initiatives are leading in the battle against the traditional approaches to these musical genres: the OutNow record label launches on Tuesday night, while the Cafe Gibralter blog celebrates its first anniversary on Wednesday.

Anger, frustration, and a desire to change set ways of thinking are not usually the driving force behind Israeli music. The social protest movement may eventually change that, but until now our musicians have not traditionally challenged authority. When a scream is released, it's usually by punk or hip-hop bands. Nevertheless, frustration with the way things are - and a strong wish to change the situation - can also sprout from other sources as is evident in two recent cultural initiatives: one, a new record label; the other, a music blog.

The OutNow record label, to be launched Tuesday at the Levontin 7 nightclub in Tel Aviv, seeks to widen the horizons of the Israeli jazz scene. The Cafe Gibraltar blog is devoted to what is often called "world music," yet at the same time is waging war against this expression and the cultural-political position that it represents. It celebrates its first anniversary Wednesday in a show at the Barbie Club in Tel Aviv.
The Elayev family - Daniel Tchetchik - August 2011    

According to guitarist Ido Bukelman, who founded the OutNow label together with saxophonist Yoni Kretzmer and guitarist Yair Yona, "one of the motives for founding the label was the feeling that the Israeli jazz scene is deteriorating intellectually. This is true of both the audience and the musicians. Everyone expects jazz to sound one specific way. It has to have a certain color, a certain articulation, and swing. The moment those conditions aren't fulfilled, it's no longer considered jazz. We want to change that concept. Jazz for us is the most open, the most elastic form of music, and we want to open up new vistas in the world of Israeli jazz."

Redefining jazz

Last week Bukelman attended a show of young musicians playing traditional jazz, "and something inside me rebelled," he says. "It really got on my nerves. Why is that considered jazz, and when I play what I see as jazz with an acoustic guitar or an electronic trio, that's considered avant-garde or some other definition? The current situation, in which musicians play covers of music from the sixties, has to change. Otherwise it's just conservation."

The OutNow label grew not only out of conceptual frustration, but also out of practical distress. "There was no record company here with which we could release our music," says Bukelman. "That gave us a feeling of helplessness. What do you do with the work after it's over? In what way do you show it to the world? Play it again for an audience of friends and then put it away in a drawer? This time we decided, no more."

It's all in the name

The name of the new label carries a number of meanings. In jazz jargon, the word "out" means playing freely, outside of any clear boundaries of harmony and rhythm. Whereas "now" indicates Bukelman's, Kretzmer's, and Yona's desire to bring to the stage music of the present day, rather than music that recycles the past. But OutNow can also have another, more immediate meaning - releasing the music now, right after it is composed.

The label is now releasing no less than six new disks. Bukelman is involved in three of them: a solo disk, in which he plays nothing but acoustic guitar; a disk by a quartet led by Bukelman, with cellist Yuval Messner; and a disk by the electronic trio EFT, with Daniel Davidovsky and Ofer Bymel. Kretzmer is releasing a disk with his own quartet, while the other two disks present music by the Israeli-New York-based drummer Ehran Elisha: on the first disk he plays with his father, Haim Elisha, while the second disk is a duo with the wonderful American trumpet player Roy Campbell, whose very presence is an achievement in itself for OutNow.

The label will premiere in Tel Aviv tonight at 8 P.M. at the Levontin 7 Club (concerts have already been given in Jerusalem and Haifa about two weeks ago). The show will include short appearances by Bukelman, Kretzmer, Albert Beger, and the trio made up of Ehran and Haim Elisha and Harold Rubin. Does Bukelman believe this kind of music has an audience? "I'm pretty optimistic," he says. "I think interest in it is gaining. There is a larger audience than you might think. People are looking for an alternative."

A timely venture

The OutNow folks would be satisfied to receive the same kind of exposure over the next year that has been enjoyed by the Cafe Gibraltar site during its first year of existence. When Ofir Tubul founded Cafe Gibraltar, it was unclear what the future would hold for a site that deals with music from Iran, Algeria, Thailand, Ashdod, and East Jerusalem, turning its back - and, at times, its middle finger - at Anglo-American indie music, the favored field of most Israeli music blogs. But thanks to the energetic activities of its founder and writers - and to the cultural vacuum which it fills - Cafe Gibraltar has quickly become a central player in the Internet discourse on music in Israel. The past year has seen the release of a number of Israeli albums that are attuned to the site's agenda: Dudu Tassa and the Kuwaitis, Yemen Blues, the Elayev family album, and, to some degree, the new album by Berry Sakharof (whom one of the writers on the site, Eidan Ring, called "the first Israeli cannibal," after the "cultural cannibalism" of the Brazilian Tropicalia movement ). This has only sharpened the sense that Cafe Gibraltar knows how to pinpoint a cultural shift in real time.

Further testimony of the site's success is the high quality of the bands lined up for tomorrow's anniversary show at the Barbie Club, among them, the Elayev family, the Jewish-Algerian pianist Maurice El Madyoni, the Jerusalemite oud player Nino Biton and the Maghreb Orchestra, the flamenco singer Yehuda Shviki, the BTA trio (saxophonist Eyal Talmudi, percussionist Hillel Amsallem, and bassist Hagai Bilitzky ), and the Druze reggae ensemble Toot Ard. The latter includes an electric guitar, but it will be the only one on stage during the entire evening and, contrary to the Barbie's usual repertoire, it will remain in the shadow of the oud, the kanun, the kahoon, and the darbuka.
 Haaretz.com