Exile - Mixed Media - Sound Recording Review

New Internationalist, July, 2003 by Louise Gray

by Gilad Atzmon & the Orient House Ensemble

(Enjo Records TIP 888 844-296 CD)

For jazz enthusiasts who feel that their listening sometimes lacks a little passion comes Exile, an album that doesn't mince its words. 'This album is a prayer for the world to acknowledge the Palestinian essential right of return,' its Israeli composer, Gilad Atzmon, states in the sleeve-notes. Brave words and braver notes, for Exile -- made by musicians and singers who are all in real or self-imposed exile -- is ah album that uses music as a metaphor for conflict. Atzmon, a clarinet, sax and flute player, takes Arabic lyrics and sets them with 'Israeli' music -- witness the centrepiece 'Al-Quds' -- and, in so doing, makes us painfully aware how close Jewish and Palestinian cultures could be.

Much of Exile takes its dynamic from Atzmon's lead; accordions and ouds pop up from time to time to underscore that this isn't a beard-stroking album as much as a shoe-leather burner. That said, it's 'Al Quds' that will get any dancer to stop in their tracks, featuring the powerful vocals of Reem Kelani, an ethnic Palestinian who can trace her heritage back to Muhammad.

The song's title is the Arabic name for Jerusalem. As the band improvises on the music to 'Jerusalem the Golden' -- a sentimental song going back to the Six-Day War -- Kelani substitutes a poem of Palestinian exile by Mahmoud Darwish. It's nothing short of audacious, and Exile carries it off courageously.

Rating * * * * *

www.gilad.co.uk

STAR RATING

EXCELLENT  *****
VERY GOOD   ****
GOOD         ***
FAIR          **
POOR           *