Red Sea Jazz Festival takes on the world

One of the big names from overseas is 70-year-old guitarist Larry Coryell.

By BARRY DAVIS
AMERICAN JAZZ guitarist Larry Coryell (photo credit: JOHN PIERCE)
AMERICAN JAZZ guitarist Larry Coryell
(photo credit: JOHN PIERCE)
The forthcoming fourth annual Red Sea Jazz Festival will take place in Eilat February 6-8. Perennial artistic director Dubi Lenz has put a decidedly cross-cultural world music slant on the three-day program.
One of the big names from overseas is 70-year-old guitarist Larry Coryell who, as a young musician on the New York jazz scene of the late Sixties and early Seventies, made his mark on the jazz fusion scene. The audience in Eilat will see Coryell team up with five flamenco-oriented musicians, including two guitarists, a flutist, a double bass player and a percussionist.
The ethnically inclined spread is maintained by the Leszek Mozdzer Trio, which features the Polish leader on piano, who mixes jazz with classical music, Swedish jazz bassist Lars Danielsson and stellar Israeli ethnic percussionist Zohar Fresco.
Tango fans should enjoy the show by the Buenos Aries-based Escalandrum sextet fronted by drummer Daniel “Pipi” Piazzolla, the grandson of feted nuevo tango – tango-jazz fusion – composer Astor Piazzolla.
One of the more intriguing acts in the festival lineup is a quartet led by promising Ethiopian jazz pianist Samuel Yirga, while American percussionist Steve Shehan, who brings his own foursome to the Eilat fray, has been collaborating with all manner of ethnic musicians for over 30 years.
On the home front, internationally renowned Israeli pianist Anat Fort will team up with veteran guitarist and oud player Amos Hoffman, New York-based saxophonist Uri Gurvich will pop by to present his highly personal mix of jazz, Yemenite music and sounds from Eastern Europe and North Africa along with his quintet, and pianist Uriel Herman and his five-member band will perform materials that feeds off his synthesis of jazz, rock and classical music.
For tickets and more information: http://www.eventim.co.il/, *9991, www.ortaltour.co.il and www.redseajazzeilat.com