New York may be the recognized epicenter of the jazz world, but New Orleans is where the variegated art form was born. It is there where the multiple strands of the music came together, feeding off the city and region’s multicultural population to spawn the rhythms, beats, and textures that had America, and subsequently, much of Western Europe and other parts of the world, hoofing it to the beguiling sounds of big bands and smaller combos.
That spirit infuses the output of the New Orleans Jazz Festival in Tel Aviv, which takes place from May 30-June 1. The sixth edition of the festival rolls out 18 shows at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art with an impressive cast of artists from Israel and around the world. The lineup takes in early jazz styles, from ragtime to Dixieland, with some blues and more contemporary sounds thrown in for good measure, with the accent very much of the sunny side of the emotional and musical street.
The From New Orleans to Paris slot on May 31 (12 p.m.) should certainly have the members of the audience smiling, if not laughing gleefully out loud, stamping their feet, and doing a little boogie in their padded seats as vocalist-dancer-actress Nicolle Rochelle fronts a multinational sextet of instrumentalists. Rochelle, who was last here as part of the 2017 Hot Jazz series – Hot Jazz, like the New Orleans festival, is overseen by Shamayim Productions – represents the high energy, fun-loving side of jazz.
Parisian nostalgia
The gig centers largely on the effervescent sounds of Paris in the Roaring Twenties and 1930s. That was quite a time to be around the French capital, when the likes of clarinetist-saxophonist Sidney Bechet and envelope-pushing, American-born French dancer, singer, and actress Josephine Baker, not to mention iconic French songstress Edith Piaf who started her meteoric rise to stardom in the mid-1930s, were around.
Baker won fame and not a little notoriety for her risqué performances clad in just barely enough costume to cover “the essentials.” Rochelle, who describes herself as a “feminist artist” has a penchant for earlier jazzy climes, reprising Baker’s groundbreaking act in 2021 and also performing a homage to diva Billie Holiday.
Rochelle’s band includes German clarinetist Uli Wunner, returning Dutch trumpeter and vocalist Michael Varekamp, compatriot pianist Harry Kanters, British guitarist-singer Denny Ilett – another Hot Jazz veteran – French bassist Bruno Rousselet, and Israeli drummer Rony Holan.
Her repertoire for the occasion features time-honored numbers such as “C’est Si Bon,” popularized by the likes of Yves Montand and Eartha Kitt, Piaf’s hit “La Vie en Rose,” “When the Saints Go Marching In,” and “St. James Infirmary.”
The festival genre spread gets a tweak when the Chorale Vie Nouvelle Choir from Congo takes the stage on May 31 (11 a.m.) under the stewardship of musician-conductor Tonton Kelupa. The troupe sings spiritual-based songs in English, French, Swahili, and Congolese.
Later that day there is more in the way of gospel sounds, augmented by soul and funk, courtesy of larger-than-life, big-voiced, big-hearted American singer Vanisha Gould. This looks like one of the festival’s highlights, with Gould set to impress her audience with her storytelling skills as she feeds off her multifarious role models that take in Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Joni Mitchell, Ray Charles, and Ella Fitzgerald.
Her soulful vocals will be supported by four Israeli instrumentalists.
Other festival slots to watch for include British “King of Swing” saxophonist Ray Gelato and his suitably dubbed Swing Madness show, Rochelle’s second show on May 31 (9:30 p.m.), which salutes jazz diva triad Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, and Ella Fitzgerald, and the compelling New Orleans Mystics who perform jazz from their home town across the ages along with Motown soul, Billboard pop hits, and R&B in their own inimitable choreographed style.
For tickets and more information: (03) 573-3001 and www.hotjazz.co.il.