[Dixielandjazz] Israeli Jazz Great Dies

[Ministry of Jazz]

Shalom Jazz Fans,

I just learned this morning of the death of one of our jazz players, Stu
Hacohen. The truth is, I do not operate in his circles, and so have not
heard of him or his students mentioned in the obituary (link follows). By
the time I got here in 1996, I'm sure he was no longer performing.  Now I
will have to see if I can find a CD of his music. He sounds like the type of
fellow I would have liked to work with. Here is the link to an English obit
in Ha'aretz:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/750946.html

Keep the music alive.

Want to know why it's dying? I am making plans to head to Eilat to meet up
with listmates Tom Wiggins, Steve Barbone, Bob Romans and their crew for the
Red Sea Jazz Festival, and I spoke to the entertainment manager of the
Hilton to try to arrange (any arrangement) for my band to play in the lobby
during the festival. So the entertainment manager -- note the irony -- says,
"We don't want that music here." That was the end of the conversation. Now I
read that this fellow played 7 nights a week in the Dan Hotel (Israel's
largest hotel chain) in Tel Aviv back in the '50s.

My first big gig when I moved over here got a little bit farther. A friend
got us hired to play at the King David Hotel, an elegant British period 5
start hotel, 3 evenings a week at the patio restaurant for the summer. He
played keyboard, and I on banjo and bone, with both of us doing vocals,
including some nice harmonizations of the jazz standards. We had people
singing along, dancing between the tables, and the catering manager who
hired us watching from one of the tables with a huge grin. We were even on
TV briefly when they did a special documentary of the bombing of the hotel
50 years earlier, because we were playing music of that period. After about
2 weeks the general manager came out one evening -- a short dumpy guy who
you can tell there's trouble coming when he enters the room -- and he shut
us down on the spot... on the spot, in front of the customers. He only
wanted classical piano in the lobby.

Oh, well. Thankfully, there are other gigs.

Elazar
Dr. Jazz Dixieland Band
Tekiya Trumpet Ensemble
Jerusalem, Israel
www.israel.net/ministry-of-jazz
+972-2-679-2537