Itamar Borochov – Boomerang (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 52:14 minutes | 999 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Laborie Jazz
If he wanted to, trumpeter Itamar Borochov could awe the audiences by showing his virtuosity on his instrument. But at the age of 32, this Israeli-born but Brooklyn-based musician since 2007, a student of Junior Mance, Charles Tolliver or Cecil Bridgewater, has chosen to go further: telling a story that connects Lower Manhattan to North Africa, modern Israel and ancient Bukhara, a story we find in his album “Boomerang”.
Nowadays there are no more tenors and trumpeters, like Jonas Kaufmann and the young Israeli Itamar Borochov, but only exceptional tenors and star percussionists, or the other way around, to name just two exponents of the music scene. It does not matter whether these stars radiate exceptionally bright for artistic or purely marketing-driven reasons: main thing is, there is extensive radiation on the way. This generalizing and non-binding jubilation tires music consumers and offers no decision criterion for the acquisition of this or that album. It is best to forgo the use of these taciturn and completely empty jubilations and start doing so by turning our attention to the exponent of the album Boomerang, the trumpeter Itamar Borochov, who is praised being a “star” in all previous reviews. This is also because, thanks to his unquestionable ability, he does not need this kind of cheering through the press.
On Boomerang, we experience Itamar Borochov as a trumpeter in the group of his current quartet, including his brother Avri Borochov on the bass, Michael King on the piano, and the percussionist Jay Sawyer. Having grown up in Israel, the trumpeter has absorbed the influences of Arab and African musicians quasi with mother’s milk. In New York, he finally expanded his musical horizon towards jazz. After the visit of the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, he realized that his musical orientation, which had been gained in the Israeli homeland, would be best expressed in jazz. The New York jazz clubs confirmed him in his decision to conquer the world of contemporary jazz as a trumpeter and composer as his own, and the audience’s reaction confirmed this decision as well.
On his album, Boomerang, recorded in Paris in late 2015, it is easy to see that Itamar Borochov, fusing the western and middle-eastern sound world, has found his very own style in jazz. We encounter the Middle Eastern sound world modified, but as such recognizable only in Eastern Lullaby. Apart from that, this sound world is only remotely discernable by one or another twist in the pianist’s play or a sudden twist of the percussion, so strongly it is sublimated into a completely new sound and a surprisingly variable rhythm just as typical phrases and moods of the Western sound world of jazz, which seem shortly to surface similar to a Déja Vue, before not after all they prove themselves as elements of the very own sound language of Itamar Borochov.
A great album, on which new musical paths are convincingly pursued. An album that has the finest recording technology that makes you forget that between what you hear and the recording location a lot of hardware is used, so naturally does the Itamar Borochov Quartet sound on Boomerang.
Tracklist:
1-1. Itamar Borochov – Tangerines (02:41)
1-2. Itamar Borochov – Shimshon (09:56)
1-3. Itamar Borochov – Eastern Lullaby (01:57)
1-4. Itamar Borochov – Jones Street (06:49)
1-5. Itamar Borochov – Adon Olam (04:20)
1-6. Itamar Borochov – Jaffa Tune (09:37)
1-7. Itamar Borochov – Avri’s Tune (03:03)
1-8. Itamar Borochov – Ça va bien (04:46)
1-9. Itamar Borochov – Wanderer Song (05:09)
1-10. Itamar Borochov – Prayer (03:51)
