When you think of jazz in Israel, you don't immediately think of David Broza, who for decades has been creating music in Israel and around the world that has become established in our cultural pantheon in a variety of genres, such as folk music, Spanish music, rock and roll and poets' songs.
But it turns out that Broza's great love, which he grew up with at home, is jazz in general, and now he is finally fulfilling his old dream and putting on a complete jazz show.
This will happen as part of "Brozjazz", his new show, under the musical direction of Omer Avital and with the participation of Eden Ledin, Itamar Borochov and Iti Morhi.
The show will have its world premiere at the winter version of the Eilat Jazz Festival, which will take place on the weekend of February 22-24.
The festival will also commemorate the passing of Dobi Lentz, the music director of the festival since 2011, in a special performance last summer.
"As a kid, jazz was always around me," Broza recalls.
"I didn't play jazz, because it always seemed to me to be the 'jewel in the crown,' but I grew up on it, and over the years I collaborated with various jazz artists and surrounded myself with jazz players. The audience that comes to my concerts knows that they won't necessarily get the performance The original of the song as heard on the recording. It's not jazz, but I always improvise and let the players express themselves.
"In Corona, I was invited by the Great Synagogue in New York to rewrite all the music for Friday prayers. A secular person like me who receives such an invitation - I immediately said that I didn't think I deserved it, but they insisted.
"I came across Omer Avital playing with his band outside a cafe during the Corona virus, when it was not possible to go inside. He is one of the greatest musicians in the world that I appreciate, and when I met him I said to him, 'Let's do a project together'. That's how our romance began. We worked for a year and a half, he He made adaptations from his sources of inspiration, and we created a piece called 'Tefila'. Since then we have been performing together, a band of 30 people, and it's really a fantasy."
David Broza, photo: Moshe Ben Simhon
And when did you realize it was time for you to do a jazz show?
"In addition to the fact that I grew up in a musical home, with a mother who was the first Israeli folk singer (Sharona Aharon; MK) - they always heard jazz at home.
While working with Omar, I threw him 'maybe we'll do a jazz evening'.
I felt it was appropriate now.
He got fired up, and we started working with the bunch of musicians that perform at his place in New York.
We improvised around my songs, and slowly in these two years we developed a language.
I told him that I was applying to the jazz festival, because now that I am celebrating the 40th anniversary of 'The Woman I Am', I would like to give it a variation on the festival stage as well.
In the show, we turned songs from my repertoire into jazz standards."
"The wound won't go away"
Broza was one of the first to pick up a guitar after October 7 and performed non-stop all over the country as usual.
"I gave more than 120 performances during the war. I met soldiers, evacuees. There is no country like this in the whole world - a country that shoots, cries, sings, defends itself, mourns and strengthens itself at the same time, while singing songs. This wound is not going to disappear soon."
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