Blue Nights (Laborie Jazz)
Itamar Borochov
Released February 4, 2019
AllMusic Favorite Jazz Albums 2019
YouTube:
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About:
After the excellent “Boomerang” album released in 2016, critically acclaimed in France and around the world, Itamar Borochov once more exhibits what he can do best: putting forward his talents as an experienced melodist and a musician inhabited by a dominant spirit.
Though his hardbop past may come out at times in the structure of his compositions, this new journey proposed by Itamar Borochov (trumpet), his brother Avri (contrabass), Rob Clearfield (piano) and Jay Sawyer (drums) transports us into a space so deep and so dense that we find ourselves sucked up by all these calls from the tradition and this so modern music.
As a deep believer, Borochov also throws his authenticity into his search for “the Divine” even in the music he offers. He catches glimpses of it in various settings, both sacred and profane.
Track Listing:
1. Right Now (Itamar Borochov) 06:09
2. Blue Nights (Itamar Borochov) 05:55
3. Motherlands (Itamar Borochov) 05:13
4. Maalem (Itamar Borochov) 04:45
5. Daasa! (Itamar Borochov) 05:00
6. Garden Dog Sleeps (Itamar Borochov) 03:51
7. Broken Vessels (Itamar Borochov) 04:15
8. Revolutionizin’ (Itamar Borochov) 06:37
9. Kol Haolam Kulo (Take Me to the Bridge) Baruch Chait 05:44
Personnel:
Itamar Borochov: trumpet
Rob Clearfield: piano
Avri Borochov: bass, oud
Jay Sawyer: drums
+ Innov Gnawa (track 3)
Maalem Hassan Ben Jaafer: vocals
Samir Langus: chorus, qraqeb
Amino Belyamani: chorus, qraqeb
Produced by Laborie Jazz
Executive producer: Jean-Michel & Elie Leygonie
Recorded by Vincent Mahey at Studio Sextan
Mixed by Brian Montgomery
Mastered by Pierre Vandewaeter at Studio Lakanal
Photos by Jaka Vinsek / Jean-Baptiste Millot
Artwork / Design by Martial Muller
Review:
Israeli-born trumpeter Itamar Borochov plays a cross-pollinated style of jazz that brings together his love of Sephardic Jewish music, Arabic maquam, and richly textured modal post-bop. It’s a sound that informed 2014’s Outset and 2016’s Boomerang, and one he further develops on 2019’s atmospherically engaging Blue Nights. As a trumpeter, Borochov has a soft, warm sound that brings to mind the sultry, late-night style of artists like Miles Davis and Chet Baker. In fact, the opening track “Right Now” is just the kind of slow-burn anthem Baker might have recorded in the 1980s. It’s a style that grounds much of Blue Nights, as Borochov builds upon this lyricism with songs that grow increasingly kinetic as he weaves in yet more of his Middle-Eastern and African influences. Part of what makes Borochov’s multi-dimensional sound so appealing is that he is as much in command of the jazz tradition as he is any of the other ethnic traditions he explores here. The cinematic title track starts with Borochov playing a lilting, sensual theme that builds to a heart-wrenching pitch of skyward trumpet moans. Equally compelling, “Motherlands” has a sparkling piano groove that Borochov accents with the addition of vocals by the Moroccan collective Innov Gnawa. He also evokes the dramatic, minor-key tension of Love Supreme-era John Coltrane on the driving “Daasa!,” whose title is a reference to the song’s wavelike 7/4 Yemenite dance rhythm. Similarly, “Broken Vessels” combines Coltrane’s spiritual jazz with a fusion-rock dynamism, as Borochov’s trumpet brushes warmly against sweeping drums and far-eyed piano chords. Elsewhere, as on the buoyant “Garden Dog Sleeps,” his fluid lines bring to mind Wynton Marsalis’ early-’80s albums. Ultimately, with Blue Nights, Borochov has crafted a perfect balance between dusky jazz you want to cocoon yourself in, and polyrhythmic percussion grooves that pull you toward the horizon.
Matt Collar (AllMusic)
