Bassist/Composer Omer Avital Delves Into The Culture Of His Homeland

NYC CD Release Celebration! January 13 & 14, 2015 @ The Jazz Standard

JASON BYRNE, RED CAT PUBLICITY
Published: 2014-10-15
Omer Avital went on to cast a wide net of influence in NYC and beyond with a consistently creative and prolific output (releasing nine albums of original music since 2001, and at least eight others as a co-leader), and a steady stream of influential live performances at the finest jazz venues and festivals around the world. Avital also recorded and toured with Wynton Marsalis, Kenny Garrett, Brian Blade, Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Roy Haynes and many others. Avital has since been hailed by The Los Angeles Times as, “a pioneer in combining jazz with myriad world music elements," with The New York Times adding that, “Mr. Avital and his group are producing some of the most original music being heard in New York," and that, “outside Charles Mingus and the free-jazz bassist William Parker, such dramatic violence on the instrument is hard to come by."


In 2002, around the ten year anniversary of moving to New York, Avital returned to his native Israel, where he was the co-founder and musical director of the highly unique and successful group, Yemen Blues, as well as the New Jerusalem Orchestra, and involved in Israel's “piyut" scene (often collaborating with some of the legends of this genre, including Haim Louke, Aharom Amram, and others), to study classical European composition and Middle Eastern and North African Music. The bassist spent three years studying folk songs, dance rhythms and rituals, and these invigorated his imagination in the same way that jazz had sparked his passion before. He now looks to the East as well as to New York, toward the West as much as toward the Arab world, toward the solitude of the desert as much as the urban mêlée. The latest result of this extensive study is Avital's ambitious new recording, New Song, an electrifying, highly creative next step after the release of his previous recording, Suite of The East (released in April 2012 on Anzic Records).
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Israeli musician draws on African and American roots to make jazz

by David Cazares, Minnesota Public Radio, January 10, 2013

ST. PAUL, Minn. — If Omer Avital could tell you something about his music, it would be that it is not world music, or fusion.

As a composer and a performer, he's a jazz artist. But there's no question that the bassist draws heavily on North African and Middle Eastern traditions.

So when Avital's band plays "The Abutbuls," a tune dedicated to Moroccan music and that side of his family, a North African audience of Muslims and Jews can relate. North American jazz fans will be drawn to elements that recall international explorations by Miles Davis and Charles Mingus.

For Avital, music is about making connections between different cultures in ways that are faithful to their traditions, an approach his quintet will present tonight at the Jewish Community Center in St. Paul. Joining him on stage will be Greg Tardy on tenor saxophone; Nadav Remez on guitar; Jason Linder on piano and keyboards and Daniel Freedman on drums.

Playing with broad musical strokes comes natural for Avital, born in Israel to parents of Moroccan and Yemenite descent. Surrounded by one tradition but raised in another, he has long absorbed a variety of styles, including European classical music and jazz that swings.

Omer Avital

"I think that's where great things arise from, but at the same time there are shared links between different traditions," Avital said. "Without losing — not in a mixture or fusion kind of way but more in a deep current kind of way, you know."

His other projects include the New Jerusalem Orchestra, which combines classical music, jazz improvisation and Arabic instrumentation. He and Yemeni singer Ravid Kahalani lead Yemeni Blues, a group that uses cello, viola, jazz horns and Arabic instruments. But he loves the jazz quintet.

Avital dedicated himself to improvisation as a teenager, first studying classical guitar. He later made a name for himself as in New York City. But at 30, he returned to Israel for a while to study classical composition and Arabic musical theory and oud.

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