After receiving last year's prestigious Landau Award for jazz composition, Harold Rubin is now on something of a roll.
By BARRY DAVISMusic good 88(photo credit: )
After receiving last year's prestigious Landau Award for jazz composition, Harold Rubin is now on something of a roll. Now in his late 70s, the musician is as full of vim and vigor as ever. This Friday, the Einav Center in Tel Aviv will host the premiere screening of a new documentary about Rubin's highly eventful life to date. The film will be followed by a concert with Rubin and around 20 of the country's leading avant garde and free jazz artists.
The film is called A Magnificent Failure, although that is a reflection of Rubin's approach to art and his life rather than a negative comment on his career to date."I got the idea after I saw a Rembrandt painting once," free jazz clarinetist, composer and poet Rubin explains. "I realized that you may get satisfaction from a work of art you have created, but that feeling quickly passes, and you move on to the next work. So, in that sense, you always fail."
Rubin has been living in Israel since the early Sixties, after fleeing his native South Africa when he fell foul of the apartheid regime of the time. After initially failing to find some likeminded musicians when he first arrived here, he gave up playing altogether for 12 years before being coaxed back to the music scene by a fellow arts teacher. Since then, he has been highly active on the improvisational music circuit and has released a dozen CDs as leader and provided sideman services on many more.
A Magnificent Failure has also been accepted for screening at the What Makes Music Laugh Festival in Berlin in June and, gratifyingly, by the International Film Festival in South Africa in November. A Magnificent Failure will be screened at the Enav Center in Tel Aviv on Friday at 1 p.m.
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