Gilad Atzmon
Monday, June 16th, 2008Innocents abroad in York ! As part of the late music festival the National Centre for Early Music put on Gilad Atzmon and the Orient House Ensemble - a jazz gig. And jazz it was - sax, keyboard, bass, drums - melodic, driving, moving to contemporary blasts of noise. What I didn’t know, and should have picked up from Gilad’s insistence that he wasn’t going to make any political remarks, was that he is a prominent anti-Zionist - jazz musician first, he says - but novelist and polemicist too. Good to have him here - pity I hadn’t done my homework so I could appreciate him in the round. Music impressive - but concert stuff - not sure how it would go down in the living room.