[Dixielandjazz] Swing Inside and Out

[Marek Boym]

Hello folks,
I have just received the following from my friend Donna, who attended
two performances last Thursday and Friday.
Unfortunately, I could not be there due to illness (and no, not
because I got sick and tired of it all - just running high
temperature).

The Felicja Blumental Music Center (this is the correct spelling,
because the late Ms. Blumental, an internationally acknowledged
classical pianist, was from Poland) is located on one of the old
streets of Tel-Aviv.

I have already mentioned both bands on this list,  Now you have
someone else's impressions.  You must admit that Donna is a wonderful
writer.
Cheers


"Swing Inside and Out

I got that old jazz festival feeling this Thursday and Friday with an
exciting jazz performance each day.  They had a lot in common, yet
were very different.

On Thursday evening, I made my way to the charming old Tel Aviv
building housing the Felicia Blumenthal Music Center to see one of my
favorite bands, the exciting and innovative Django Reinhart disciples,
Swing de Gitanes.  The intimate concert hall seats 115 and it was
packed.  The rows of chairs have wooden backs with upholstered seats
blending nicely with the subdued deep pink carpeting and semicircular
stage with parquet floor and wooden trim.  The atmosphere is that of a
large living room.  Most of the public arrived on time and was seated
and waiting before the scheduled starting time.  I don’t know why the
concert actually started a few minutes late.  Seats are not reserved,
so I was lucky to be in the first row and, though to the side, with a
good vantage point to see the guitars.  Yes, one of my favorite bands,
the exciting and innovative Django Reinhart disciples, Swing de
Gitanes, was playing.  The core of the band is Oren Sagi, bass violin,
Yaakov Hoter, guitar and Ori Ben-Zvi, guitar.  For this outing, they
were reinforced much, but not all, of the time by two additional
rhythm guitarists, Shai Teffer and Alon Sagi, Oren’s brother (Yaakov,
who served double-duty as friendly announcer, as is his want, didn’t
miss the chance of pointing out that this, too, was in the tradition
of Django Reinhart, whose brother Joseph played with him in the
Quintette de Hot Club de France).  This backup rhythm gave the core
trio more opportunities to solo, trade fours and accompany each other
in more obbligato style.  The audience applauded wildly and long, for
solos, as well as after tunes, and even cheered quite often.  I
particularly noticed the exciting interaction between Oren Sagi and
Yaakov Hoter.  The joke about the marriage counselor getting an
estranged couple to talk by playing a bass solo loses all meaning in
light of Oren’s spellbinding solos that kept every member of the
audience in thrall.  Yaakov’s solos were enchanting and his highly
unusual introduction to Ochi Chornie was not only brilliant but also
really far out (to risk revealing my age).  Ori Ben-Zvi demonstrated
his virtuosity throughout, particularly in reenacting Django’s
two-finger playing style.  Oren Sagi’s talents as a composer were also
highlighted, to everyone’s delight.  Perhaps this band has some New
Orleans connections because there was even a lagniappe – Yaakov
announced a good friend, tap-dancer and singer, trim and lithe Ronny
Freund was back from the States with his tap-dancing San Franciscan
girlfriend (I didn’t quite catch her name, but I think it’s Josephine
or Josepha), who demonstrated the true meaning of “tall, tan and
terrific.”  Both danced very creatively for a few numbers and Ronny
sang a chorus or two, rhythmically, melodically and without
amplification, as far as I could see.  The audience loved them and the
band sweetly brought them back for their encore.  They seemed to take
advantage of the slipperiness of the polished parquet floor to get a
lot of sliding into their dancing.  Nevertheless, it was mainly an
instrumental evening and it was the instrumentals that made it a
breathtaking evening.

The next afternoon I was off to Jaffa to hear the New Orleans Function
jazz band.  It seems some streets in the flea market area are closed
to traffic (at least on Friday afternoons) and the surrounding
bar/restaurants set out tables and chairs, benches and stands selling
beer on draught.  The number of people, sitting standing, milling
around and dancing on this one short block was probably about the same
as the number at the concert the night before, but there was surely
more turnover and this was an even younger crowd, with quite a few
babies, young children (dancing), teenagers and people in their early
twenties).  I arrived when they were scheduled to start playing, but
that only happened about half an hour later.  In the meantime, there
was recorded New Orleans style jazz and swing playing and the youthful
and rather athletic dancers from the Holy Lindyland dance school were
already dancing.  Even before the band started playing, I saw that
there was a lagniappe here too.  One of my all-time favorites, the
wonderful soprano sax player Jacques Sany was setting up with the band
– hurray!  However, their regular clarinet player, Kobi Solomon wasn’t
there.  I’ve heard Jacques and Kobi play very happily together in the
past.  The band members who were there – Eli Preminger-Trumpet; Arnon
DeBotton-trombone, Yoav Kolumbus-bass ;Yair Salzman-drums; Shimi
(Panza) Gilad- Banjo – set up and started playing in a corner of the
street.  People were constantly passing by and also dancing right
under their noses.  The trombonist often lifted his slide to make room
for the crowd.  People were eating, drinking and talking, but the band
was in its element, surrounded by lively dancers (as I said, including
children, who just lap up the music) and a few of us avid listeners,
so they played wonderfully, happily and gave their all to every solo
and to the ensemble playing.  And what do you know, out of the corner
of my eye, I noticed the tap-dancing couple from the previous night
lindy hopping along with the best of them.   They seemed to switch to
tap shoes and try a little of that at some stage, but it was so
crowded that I couldn’t really see.  The band took a break at some
stage, and played another set of about 45 minutes.  I left when the
band stopped playing, but recorded music was put on again and the
dancers kept going.

To sum up: two very different performances and lots of great music in
one Tel Aviv-Jaffa weekend."

Tags: bass, guitar, Israel, jazz, music, soprano sax, swing, Tel Aviv-Jaffa