In one of the Shelter's finest jazz concerts, Gilad Atzmon's Orient House Ensemble showed not only how to absorb musical cultures and transmute them into vividly contemporary jazz, but also how to invigorate the old bop lineage with imagination, wit and passion.
More unifying force than dominant personality, Atzmon is an extraordinary musician. Compellingly adept and inventive on soprano and playing alto with a virtuosic, force-of-nature ferocity that recalls Charlie Parker, he is an arrestingly original jazz performer who, when he turns to clarinet, is touched by greatness.
Shaped by his roots in Arabic, Balkan and Jewish music, as well as jazz, this distinctiveness was underlined by a first set stressing material from the group's current album for the Enja Tiptoe label, including, if I've identified them correctly, Pardonnez Nous, Shir and a marvellous group performance of Miron Dance.
Despite an astonishingly high standard of solo playing from Atzmon and pianist Frank Harrison, these were, above all, integrated and unified ensemble pieces. It was impossible to conceive of them otherwise: the rock-solid bass of Oli Hayhurst and the Greek chorus, to mix metaphors somewhat, of Asaf Sirkis's drums were just as central to the quartet's work, in which the group did wonders on the most restricted of harmonic bases.
While I Got It Bad (with an off-centre quote from It Might As Well Be Spring), was typical of Atzmon's delightful sense of humour, he also made a deeply felt acknowledgement of his sympathies with the Palestinians through a moving performance of his own Balladi from his CD. It was that kind of night.
