Translator's Note

Album review

The Israeli jazz scene never ceases to offer up treasure after treasure. Based in New York, along with a large number of his compatriots, Oded Tzur has already created a sound that's all his own. With Translator's Note, the saxophonist has released a beautiful ode to cross-fertilisation but also to the fundamentals of improvisation. With the pianist Shai Maestro, double-bassist Petros Klampanis and the drummer Ziv Ravitz, he traces the contours of a jazz at whose heart is the thread of melody. But it is the fluidity of the sound that impresses above all else. It is a current that has not only been fed by the springs of the jazz greats. Far from it: in 2007, Tzur took a course in Indian music at the Rotterdam World Music Academy. There, the professor was none other than Hariprasad Chaurasia, grand master of the bansuri flute. The elegant phrase and spiritual depth of his playing naturally inspired Oded Tzur. And to underline that this is a jazz album first and foremost, the record closes with a weightless version of Lonnie's Lament by John Coltrane… All these exchanges, these meetings, haunt Translator's Note, a unique and possessed contemporary jazz album. © MD/Qobuz