A Rosa by any other name

A chance encounter saw Tomer Katz fall in love with rebetiko, a Greek folk style of music made popular by artists such as Rosa Ashkenazi.

By BARRY DAVIS
perach adom_521 (photo credit: Courtesy)
perach adom_521
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Perach Adom (Red Flower) is, quite simply, a labor of love. The quintet, headed by vocalist- string instrument player Tomer Katz, has just put out an album called Esh Shel Ahava (Fire of Love) which showcases thirtysomething Katz’s writing abilities and, in particular, his penchant for rebetiko. The band is in the middle of a nationwide tour with concerts lined up at Shablul Club in Tel Aviv tomorrow (9 p.m.) and Kfar Blum (December 31, 9 p.m. and February 11, 9 p.m.)
Rebetiko has its roots in the 1920s, developed in Greece in the Sixties and Seventies and can be loosely defined as a sort of urban Greek folk music. It also embraces numerous influences and is a synthesis of various elements of European music, music from different regions of mainland Greece and the Greek islands, Greek Orthodox ecclesiastical chant and the modal traditions of Ottoman art music and café music. It also has a strong bluesy feel to it.
Interestingly, two of the most popular performers of the genre were Jewish – Andonios Dalgas and Rosa Ashkenazi – and Perach Adom provided part of the soundtrack for a documentary about Ashkenazi, called My Sweet Canary, which came out earlier this year. But it wasn’t Ashkenazi who originally drew Katz to Greece, and it wasn’t rebetiko that first inspired Katz to pick up a musical instrument.
“I come from Kibbutz Dalia [east of Zichron Ya’acov] and I was maneuvered towards the accordion, but I started playing guitar because my older brother played it at the time,” says Katz. “I wanted to be [iconic Deep Purple guitarist] Ritchie Blackmore. I still think he’s the greatest rock guitar player ever.”
Once he discovered the world of music, and taking an active role in it, there was no looking back. “There were loads of bands around the kibbutz back then – really good ones. There was one called Diez (the musical term “sharp”) so a few of us got a band going which we called Bemoll (“minor”). I waited all week for band practice on Fridays. It was everything for me, the best way I could express everything inside me, emotionally and in other ways.” Katz also realized that there was more to music than learning Blackmore riffs. “I loved rock but I learned that, if I wanted to take music seriously I had to look at other genres, like jazz.”
At the tender age of 15 Katz found himself sharing classrooms with far older students as part of the very first year of Rimon School of Music, in 1985. “I almost felt as if I was an intruder. There were people like [guitarist] Gil Dor and [singer-guitarist] Etti Ankri, who were all post-army. But I learned a lot there.”
Serving in an IDF band would have been a natural progression for Katz but, unfortunately, it was not to be. “A friend of mine and I both tried out for IDF bands,” Katz recalls. “He got in and I didn’t – maybe he had connections, I don’t know. While I was on basic training he came to the base with a band to entertain us and he told me he was sleeping in a hotel in Eilat that night while I had regular basic training army camp sleeping facilities. I didn’t feel too good about that at the time, I can tell you.”
Three years on and Katz found himself footloose and fancy free in the civilian world and looking for a way to further his musical endeavor. He began putting the works of iconic Israeli poets, the likes of Rahel and Avraham Halfi, to music and made an important practical discovery. “I found out I could make ends meet with music. I could teach guitar and still eat and pay my rent. I felt on top of the world.”
A traumatic non-musical experience was to bring Katz crashing back to earth. “I went to the beach one day and I almost drowned. That really shook me up and I realized I wasn’t exactly on top of the world. I couldn’t shake off the shock and a friend of mine suggested I take a trip to the Greek islands, so I went to Santorini.”
IT WAS an inspired move that led to good things. “I quickly felt good there. One day I took a ferry to another island and I heard a band on the ferry playing rebetiko. I had no idea what the music was but I liked it straightaway. For me it wasn’t Greek music. The Greek music I’d heard before that disgusted me, but there was something about rebetiko, the sound of the [Turkish-Greek string instrument] baglama that really attracted me, and the feel of the music.”
Katz had, naturally, taken his guitar along with him to the islands and thought it would be a good way of communicating with people he’d meet en route. “I met a Greek girl on the boat – Irini – and we clicked. I played some songs for her which I'd practiced before I left Israel – rock and pop songs with which I thought people could identify.” But it wasn’t the Rod Stewart numbers that produced the requisite spark. “I played [Hanna Szenes’s song] ‘Eli Eli’ and that really moved Irini. I realized that, if I really wanted to communicate through music, I had to play something genuine and with real feeling.” Irini also persuaded Katz to go with her to Athens and the couple went to see live rebetiko acts.
By the time Katz returned to Israel he knew his musical path led back to this part of the world. He spent some time back at his old kibbutz and he caught a local gig of east-west crossover band Bustan Abraham. Katz was particularly drawn to oud player-violinist Taiseer Elias and private lessons with Elias, at his home in Shfaram, soon ensued. Elias soon suggested to Katz that he take his eastern musical intent a step or two further by enrolling at the Academy of Music and Dance of the Hebrew University, and Katz moved to Jerusalem.
“One day I was on Rehov Hamadregot [in Jerusalem’s Nahlaot neighborhood] when I heard someone playing a Greek song and all the memories of the rebetiko music I’d heard in Greece came flooding back,” Katz recalls. “I started trying to play Greek songs on guitar and I got a band together with some other students from the academy and we started playing regularly at a place in Nahlaot.”
The die was cast. Katz started writing Hebrew lyrics for tried and tested rebetiko numbers and has been firmly entrenched in the genre ever since.
Katz wrote most of the music and the lyrics for Esh Shel Ahava and, on the current tour, he joins forces with Nataly Oryon (vocals, Daniel Hofman (violin), Elad Kinar (bass) and Orel Tamuz (percussion), with Katz on vocals as well as bouzouki, oud and baglama.
Rosa Ashkenazi, who died 20 years ago, may not have been Katz’s original guiding light but one gets the feeling she would have approved of Perach Adom.