Jazz guitar legend John McLaughlin plays for Palestine

By John Davison
Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - The Palestinian territories are rarely a destination for jazz musicians let alone stars of an art form that is more at home in big cities such as New York and Chicago.

Which makes the performance of jazz guitar legend John McLaughlin before a packed auditorium in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday night all the more remarkable.

McLaughlin toured areas of the West Bank before enthralling the mostly local audience who attended his "solidarity concert" for Palestinians with a fusion of Western and Eastern sounds.

The 72-year-old British musician, who has recorded with the likes of late jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, said proceeds from the concert would go to a local NGO.

"People here are isolated... and the situation is such that since very few people can leave, it's important that people from the outside come in," he told AFP.

Palestinians "don't have freedom, they don't even have passports... it's lamentable that an entire people are in such a situation. So I feel it incumbent upon myself to make other people aware of it," McLaughlin said.
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