Omer Avital Qantar

SHOW'S OVER
Event Has Passed

Last Show: Wednesday 27 th November 2019

PizzaExpress Jazz Club (Soho)

Qantar is OMER AVITAL’s dream quintet. Since forming in 2016, the improvisations they created around Avital’s compositions jelled in an immediate and uncanny way, as if the musicians were traveling along the same tightrope, aloft and daring, with an incredible solidarity held together by a bond that went far beyond performing the notes and letting go in the solos. That bond seems to have been formed from their individual careers criss-crossing so many times since leaving Israel. Indeed, all are Israeli expatriates, all living in Bedford–Stuyvesant (Bed-Stuy), Brooklyn, all then hanging out at Omer’s sharing dinner and Turkish coffee. There is a friendship these musician’s enjoy which definitely penetrates the performances. This shared history, even though years apart, imbued this quintet with the key to Avital’s music: his ability to bring the various rhythmic and harmonic vocabularies underpinning 20th and 21st century hardcore jazz expression and flow those with a polyphonic attitude and musical multilingualism.

Read more ...

Among the many talented Israeli musicians who have appeared on the world jazz scene in recent years, Omer Avital stands out from the rest. He is not part of this wave but rather one of those who initiated it – Omer Avital is a pioneer. The musician, who has lived in New York since 1992, is partly responsible for put- ting his native country on the jazz map. Critics from Downbeat and The New York Times have high praise for the classically trained virtuoso bass player; he has even been called the Israeli Charles Mingus. 

Avital is a visionary who combines music from his cultural background with modern Western jazz. This makes for an atmospheric sound with contagious Middle-Eastern grooves, subtle jazz melodies and orchestral arrangements of Sephardic compositions. 

With every new album, Avital tries to deliver new music with a strong statement, a pow- erful sound, joyful rhythms and oriental melodies that draw on gospel and soul. Avital is continually evolving contemporary jazz, rightly been called one of the most unique musicians of his generation. Informed by his experience in the polyglot melting pots of his native and adopted homes, Avital will continue to merge the streams of expression that permeate his unique musical production over the last two decades. Pragmatic and utopian, grounded and visionary, he’s a 21st century lodestar. 

https://www.omeravital.com/