Jazz & Chamber Music

Maybe I shouldn’t put these two together—jazz and chamber music—but in my creative universe the two are so closely connected that it’s hard to tell where one begins and the other ends. Or one ends and the other begins?

I suppose you could say that jazz has some improvisation, while chamber doesn’t. But that doesn’t really work for me for reasons I’ll explain one day.

In the meantime, below are some examples of my output in this work over the last 35 years or so (in reverse order, because I get better as I age.)

Kabbalah Blues/Quantum Funk (2000)

I begin with my classic mix of everything, the incomparable Kabbalah Blues/Quantum Funk. It’s a mix of jazz, avant garde, pop, Latin, blues, and Jewish themes. It shouldn’t work, but it mostly does. I wrote this in 1999 and recorded it with my stellar group—The Revolution Ensemble—a year later. Gingi Lahera is the lead vocalist on most of the vocal tracks, except for the two that I sing on.

From the same group (The Revolution Ensemble) are two smaller subsets: The Revolution Ensemble String Quartet and The The Revolution Ensemble Jazz Quartet. In fact, these two preceded  Kabbalah Blues in which I put the two together and added a vocalist. Again, these are live recordings, both from 1999. You can read more about each on the Bandcamp pages for the album (Click the album title link below the album artwork.)

TRE String Quartet

TRE Jazz Quartet

And there’s more. But you’ll have to wait for that….