Israeli Jazz Musicians in the International Scene: A Case Study of Musical Transculturation in Contemporary Jazz Performance and Composition by Noam Lemish A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts in Performance Faculty of Music University of Toronto © 2018 Copyright by Noam Lemish ii Israeli Jazz Musicians in the International Scene: A Case Study of Musical Transculturation in Contemporary Jazz Performance and Composition Noam Lemish Doctor of Musical Arts in Performance Faculty of Music University of Toronto 2018 ABSTRACT This dissertation is a case study of musical transculturation in jazz performance and composition through the examination of the practices of Israeli jazz musicians who began to operate on the international jazz scene starting in the 1990s. An impressive number of Israeli jazz performers have received widespread exposure and acclaim over the last twenty years. Artists such as Omer Avital (bass), Anat Cohen (woodwinds), Avishai Cohen (bass) among many others have successfully established themselves on a global scale, creating music that melds various aspects of American jazz with an array of Israeli, Jewish and Middle-Eastern influences and those from numerous other non- Western musical traditions. While each musician is developing his or her own approach to musical transculturation, common threads connect them all. Unraveling these entangled sounds and related discourses lies at the center of my study. While this is the first comprehensive study of the contributions of Israeli musicians in the international jazz scene, it is also intended to engage with the “global” phenomenon of transcultural jazz practice more broadly. By considering the performers discussed in the study iii as multi-local musicians, I offer an alternative to both American exceptionalist views of jazz, for instance, jazz as America’s gift to the world, and to “jazz nationalism”, a scholarly outlook that emphasizes the localization of “jazz” in (non-American) nation-states, and that continues to hold sway around the world, especially in Europe. In so doing, I also aim to invite explorations of the multi-local music making practices of jazz musicians worldwide. Thus, this project simultaneously provides insight into the nature and role of transcultural music making in contemporary jazz practice while enhancing knowledge of modern Israeli society and culture. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Completing this project would not have been possible without the mentorship, support and generosity of many wonderful people. First, my deepest gratitude to professor Jeff Packman, my dissertation advisor, who shepherded me through this lengthy journey with constant enthusiasm, encouragement, expertise and inspiration. Jeff’s sharp intellect, broad based knowledge, timely and poignant advice, were invaluable. His engaging and engaged approach, humour and positivity also made the process greatly enjoyable and uplifted me when things were challenging. I always looked forward to our meetings, not only because I knew that I would gain greater clarity about the project but because I relished every opportunity I had to “talk shop” with Jeff and “pick his brain” about matters relating to my dissertation and beyond. Without fail, I left my meetings with Jeff with my batteries replenished, feeling galvanized and motivated to push forward, clear about what I needed to do next. My gratitude also goes to my two other dissertation committee members, professors Farzaneh Hemmasi and Terry Promane. They too provided illuminating feedback and valuable insights that helped me tremendously as I advanced this project forward. I want to also thank University of Toronto professors Midori Koga, Jim Lewis, Mike Murley, Alexander (Sasha) Rapoport, Chase Sanborn, for their mentorship and support for the entire duration of my doctoral studies. Many thanks also to Professor Evan Rapport, my external examiner, for his careful reading and thoughtful feedback about my dissertation. I want to thank the faculty and staff at the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto, particularly Galina Vaisman and professors Doris Bergen and Anna Shternshis for providing crucial financial support for my fieldwork in the US and Israel. I am grateful for their commitment to sustaining and shaping the interdisciplinary collaborative v graduate program in Jewish studies. This invaluable program broadened my understandings and engagement with Jewish studies and offered me a community of colleagues and friends whose own research provided inspiration and education. I am also very grateful to several scholars outside of the University of Toronto who gave of their time to discuss my ideas and provided valuable insights, advice and feedback about my project at various points along the way including E. Taylor Atkins, Ofer Gazit, Tomie Hahn, Motti Regev, Alona Sagee-Keren and Edwin Seroussi. I often shared with friends and colleagues that the most enjoyable part of this project was my fieldwork. Life is pretty good when you get to spend your days sitting at cafes in NYC and Israel talking about music with fantastic musicians who are thoughtful about their life and work. I am grateful to all of my interlocutors for so graciously lending their time and energy to our conversations and for their generosity of spirit. Thank you also to Shira Senesh for her meticulous, precise and expeditious interview transcriptions. My thanks to my dear friend Miles Wick for hosting me in Brooklyn during my first round of fieldwork in winter of 2014 and to my brother Leeshai Lemish and sister-in-law, Sarah Cook for hosting me during of my second visit to NY in spring of 2015. My thanks to my sister Erga for her support and uplifting humor! As I write these words, I think it is finally fair to say that I’ve reached the yeshoret: now it’s your turn. To Yehonatan Vardi and Ofer Globerman, for their friendship and generous hospitality during my fieldwork in Israel. In 1998, when we were classmates in high school, Ofer and I created IJO-Israeli Jazz Online. We never would have imagined that twenty years later, our modest website would serve as a resource for my dissertation on Israeli jazz. vi My profound thankfulness to my aunt and uncle Hadas and Amos Gershony for so lovingly opening their home at Kibbutz Galed and hosting me for the duration of my fieldwork in summer of 2015. My time in the kibbutz, my first extended stay in Israel in nearly a decade, was richly productive, deeply meaningful and indeed critical for the success of this project. Between busy and joyful days of interviews and concerts across the country, I was blessed to have the opportunity to spend many wonderful hours visiting with my family in the kibbutz (which included, aside from my aunt and uncle, cousins and their children), and reconnected with sights, sounds, flavours and memories from my childhood and youth. Perhaps, most significantly, amidst the summer in the kibbutz, I had the great fortune of being able to spend much quality time with my maternal grandmother Chaya (Mishkov) Barkai (1925-2016) by way of daily visits, conversations and meals together. Back in Toronto, I spoke with her by phone for the last time in late November of 2016, only a week or so before she passed away. During our conversation, she asked me, as she almost always did during our trans-Atlantic conversations in recent years, “are you able to find time to write?” Indeed, after her passing, during the months of intense writing this past year I called on her kind and gentle nudge, hearing her voice echoing in my ear’s memory as a motivation to keep pushing towards the finish line. My parents, both professors and scholars, traveled a fair bit for work during my childhood and they would always bring back souvenirs from their travels. After I started to get serious about music, jazz in particular, they began to bring back CDs of local jazz artists from those countries. My father traveled to Capetown, South Africa when I was 13 and returned with a pile of CDs by Abdullah Ibrahim and many other South African jazz artists who created a style of music known as “Cape-jazz”. He and my mother also brought back jazz CDs from vii Canada, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the UK and many other places. The sounds I heard on those CDs excited me and planted the seeds for my interest in transcultural jazz, which eventually led me to pursue this project. My love and my unending gratitude to my parents, Peter and Dafna Lemish, whose own lives, work and values have so inspired and influenced mine. I am forever grateful for growing up in a household that valued intellectual inquiry, critical thinking and to having parents who modeled what passion and dedication for their chosen craft looks like. I feel immensely fortunate to have parents who themselves had gone through the process of writing dissertations and were able to provide me with such valuable insights, advice and support. I am particularly grateful to my father for our many enjoyable and engaging conversations about my research and for his feedback about my work. Finally, my boundless love and gratitude to Marie: for the still points and for all the points in between. For her unending encouragement, constant support, and always sound advice. Thank you for sharing this journey with me. viii DEDICATION To my parents Dafna and Peter ix TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES……………………………………………………. xii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION: “ISRAELI JAZZ”, MUSICAL TRANSCULTURATION AND THE MULTI-LOCAL MUSICIAN……………………………………………………………………………... 1 “ISRAELI JAZZ” AS A CASE STUDY FOR MUSICAL TRANSCULTURATION………………… 4 PERFORMING ISRAELINESS………………………………………………………………………... 6 PROBLEMATIZING ESSENTIALIST CONCEPTUALIZATIONS………………………………….. 9 AUDIOTOPIAS OF THE MULTI-LOCAL MUSICIAN……………………………………………… 14 PERSONAL BACKGROUND…………………………………………………………………………. 17 METHODOLOGY……………………………………………………………………………………… 22 DISSERTATION OUTLINE…………………………………………………………………………… 23 CHAPTER TWO: VOICING JAZZ NARRATIVES: INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE VOICES OF JAZZ IN GLOBAL CONTEXT……………… 27 STANDARD VOICINGS……………………………………………………………………………… 29 COMPLEX VOICINGS: THE “NEW JAZZ STUDIES”……………………………………………..