october 2004

Rearranging the Twentieth Century

In the early days of the twentieth century, culture became an industry and music became a commodity. To begin with it looked promising. Music for the people, beauty en masse. This is when jazz was born, when tango crossed oceans, when Nino Rota met Fellini, when the Beatles managed to persuade teenyboppers to toss their knickers in the air. But things changed, something went wrong.

It was a pretty gloomy day when I realised that popular music wasn’t aiming towards beauty. Music stopped referring to itself. Aesthetics was brutally murdered in broad daylight and a shallow notion of fashion took its place. A market value was attached to every bar. Music became furniture, a matter of style, a mass global product, an extension of Levi jeans or a secondary product to Coca-Cola.

It is time to move on, to rediscover why we all listened to music in the first place, why some of us decided to play music for a living. It is time to seek a glimpse of essentiality in our overwhelmingly noisy environment. Now is the time to rearrange the twentieth century, to stand up, to rebel, to resist and to say ‘no thanks’. It is time to tell Big Brother ‘I will decide what music is about’. This album is a search for the means rather than for an end. It is about playing music; it is about making music for the sake of musiK.

musiK

musiK is music when it is stripped of its market value. It is the naked German beauty.

Being at the centre of man’s innermost reality, musiK is probably the wildest expression of the omnipotent might embodied by the great requiem. It is the impotent shiver performed by the descending lonesome violin. It is the spotless expression of enlightenment and its ‘highly praised’ tempered tonality. It is the sublime oud indecisive tonality digging into the Arabian night.

Unlike visual art, which composes beauty out of shapes, colours and matter, unlike prose, which integrates words into meanings and narratives, musiK is all about musiK. In other words, musiK is all about man, man’s emotions, intimate desires, pain, hysteria, tranquillity, lust, love, frustration, liberation and indifference. musiK is the search for oneself; musiK is the search in itself. musiK is mankind at his very best.

Enjoy yourself

Gilad Atzmon

On November 19th the Orient House ensemble  will play musiK at the London Queen Elizabeth Hall (London Jazz Festival).

This will be our official UK launch date of our new album: musiK,  Re Arranging the 20th Century

For this special event we will join forces with Yeast, the astonishing video
artist company http://www.yeastdirections.org.uk/).

This time our political message is slightly extended...this time it is about Georgina and Antonela

Online booking:

http://www.rfh.org.uk/main/events/116753.html?section=contemporary&file=

Telephone booking:

0870 401 8181

"Witty, wierd, bolshie and beautiful, this is a great album". Time Out

"A potently expressive musical angle on the world we live in". Jazzwise

...the work of an independent and unruly spirit still in turbulent
evolution". The Guardian

"You are either with us or against us" The American President 

"Atzmon is essentially a jazz man, and everything emanates from his moodily
lyrical playing-with the most telling moments those closest to home". 
Daily Telegraph

To buy Gilad's albums and book:
http://www.jazzcds.co.uk/store/commerce.cgi?product=GiladAtzmon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0002Y9TW4/qid=1097400016/ref=
sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/202-6871963-7173434

For more info:

http://www.gilad.co.uk/html%20files/musiK.html

Jazzwise talks to Gilad Atzmon about his album

What do you mean when you say you want to rearrange the 20th Century?

G: Aha, you go for the deep shit first. Basically I’m very enthusiastic about revisionism. I have called the album MusiK rather than Music. For me music with a ‘c’ is Anglo-Saxon cultural industry, the music business, while musiK with ‘k’ is continental understanding, the German understanding of music with that search for aesthetic pleasure, for beauty. The moment where music pushed humanity forward, maybe it was Bach, it presented the larger scope of human creation sublimely.

What draws you to Argentinian Tango?

G: I have loved tango for 20 years. Last May I went to Argentina to launch my book. And I was listening to these old guys playing tango. Obviously the Argentinian currency collapsed so they are very poor and you go to these so called third world places and there’s a huge amount of passion, emotion, and excitement in the music. So when I’m listening to tango everything’s there – passion, panic and love and hate and anger and… body fluid.

Your last album was centred on the Palestinian political issue whereas this one responds to a number of political themes.

G: I think that in general the suffering of the Palestinian people and now the Iraqi or the American people is much the same issue. We’re battling against major forces. In my gigs I call them the BBS (Bush Blair Sharon) but basically it’s far bigger than the BBS – the BBS are just a servant of the
capital forces. For me Arab resistance is liberation forces. And Blair will find his place in history as one of the greatest evils. Who is going to liberate us? This is the main question. Bush is basically an illiterate imbecile.

How did the Robert Wyatt collaboration come about?

G: I recorded on his album, and Robert approached me about two years ago at a festival. His wife approached me. 'My husband wants to talk to you but he’s very shy'. And then a man came in a wheelchair and said ‘listen I’m an amateur musician I record albums from time to time and I would really like to do something if you don’t mind’ And then he gave me his card. The guy’s a genius. I want to live in the planet of Robert Wyatt.

Credits:

Gilad Atzmon - Soprano and Alto Saxophone, Clarinet, Sol , Trombone,
Shabbaabeh Flute, Piccolo

Frank Harrison - Piano

Yaron Stavi - Double Bass

Asaf Sirkis - Drums, Bandir, Riqq

Romano Viazzani - Accordion

Dumitru Ovidiu Fratila - Violin, Trumpet-Violin

Robert Wyatt - Vocal, trumpet ( Rearranging The 20th Century )

Guillermo Rozenthuler - Vocal ( Joven Hermosa y Triste, Surfing, musiK,
Merry Go Round)

Matthaios Tsahourides - Pontic Lyra, Greek Bouzouki (Liberating The American
People, Lili Marlene)

Tali Atzmon - Vocal (And She is Happy, Lili Marlene)