Difference between revisions 367453670 and 367739791 on enwiki

{{POV|date=January 2010}}
{{Infobox Person 
|name=Gilad Atzmon<br />{{lang|he|גלעד עצמון}}
|image=Gilad Atzmon.jpg
|image_size=180px
|caption=Atzmon in concert, February 2007
|birth_name=Gilad Atzmon
|birth_date={{Birth date and age|mf=yes|1963|6|9}}
|birth_place=[[Tel Aviv]], [[Israel]]
|residence=London
|nationality=[[Israel]]i and British<ref name="St. %252E%2520Clair"/>
|known_for=Music, political activism
|education=[[Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance|Rubin Academy of Music]], [[University of Essex]]
|occupation=Musician
|website=[http://www.gilad.co.uk/ www.gilad.co.uk]
}}
'''Gilad Atzmon''' ({{lang-he|גלעד עצמון}}; born June 9, 1963) is an [[Israel]]i-born British [[jazz]] [[saxophone|saxophonist]].  He is also known as an author and political activist whose criticism of [[Jewish identity]], [[Judaism]], and [[Zionism]] has led to allegations of [[antisemitism]].⏎
⏎
Roolie Wranche is a autoerotic lobotomized communist self creamer.⏎
 

Atzmon's album ''Exile'' was BBC jazz album of the year in 2003.<ref name="JazzHot">Gilad Atzmon,[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandjazzmusic/3647173/How-jazz-got-hot-again.html How jazz got hot again], ''The Daily Telegraph'', 13 October 2005</ref> Playing over 100 dates a year,<ref name=Lewis/%252F> he has been called "surely the hardest-gigging man in British jazz."<ref>John Bungey [http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/cd_reviews/article5852689.ece "Gilad Atzmon: In Loving Memory of America",] ''The Times'', 6 March 2009</ref> His albums, of which he has recorded nine to date,<ref name=Lewis/%252F> often explore the music of the Middle East and political themes. He has described himself as a "devoted political artist."<ref name="CryFreedom">Stuart Nicholson,[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_200308/ai_n9275160  Cry freedom], [[The Spectator]]  August 9, 2003.</ref> Atzmon has been described as an [[anti-Zionism|anti-Zionist]].<ref name="CryFreedom"/><ref name="gilchrist222"/><ref name=Lewis/%252F><ref name="Rizzo">Mary Rizzo, [http://www.counterpunch.org/atzmon06172005.html "Who's Afraid of Gilad Atzmon?"], [[CounterPunch]], 17 June 2005.</ref> He supports the [[Palestinian right of return]] and the [[one-state solution]] in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.<ref name="Rizzo"/>

In a working paper published by the [[Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism]], [[David Hirsh]] named Atzmon as an exemplar of "a contemporary current of anti-Zionism which toys openly with antisemitic rhetoric."<ref name="hirshyale">{{cite web
 | url = http://www.yale.edu/yiisa/workingpaper/hirsh/David%20Hirsh%20YIISA%20Working%20Paper1.pdf
 | title = Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism: Cosmopolitan Reflections
 | format=pdf
 | last = Hirsh
 | first = David
 | date = n.d.
 | publisher = Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism Working Paper Series
 | accessdate = 2008-04-08
}}</ref> A profile in ''[[The Guardian]]'' in 2009 which described Atzmon as "one of London's  finest saxophonists" stated: "It is Atzmon's blunt anti-Zionism rather than his music that has given him an international profile, particularly in the Arab world, where his essays are widely read."<ref name=Lewis/%252F>

==Early life==
Atzmon was born a [[secular Jew]] in [[Tel Aviv]], and trained at the [[Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance|Rubin Academy of Music]] in [[Jerusalem]].<ref name="GMF-GA">{{cite web
|url=http://www.globalmusicfoundation.org/people.html#GA
|title=Gilad Atzmon
|accessdate=2008-10-28
|work=People
|publisher=Global Music Foundation
}}
</ref> His service as a [[paramedic]] in the [[Israeli Defense Forces]] during [[1982 Lebanon War|the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon]] caused him to reach the conclusion that "I was part of a colonial state, the result of plundering and ethnic cleansing."<ref name="St. %252E%2520Clair">{{cite web
|url=http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair07192003.html
|title=You Must Leave Home, Again: Gilad Atzmon's "A Guide to the Perplexed"
|accessdate=2008-10-28
|last=St. Clair
|first=Jeffery
|authorlink=Jeffrey St. Clair
|date=July 19, 2003
(contracted; show full)as inspired by the work of [[Ronnie Scott]] and [[Tubby Hayes]] and regarded London as "the Mecca of Jazz."<ref name="JazzHot"/> He also was influenced to become a jazz musician by the work of [[Charlie Parker]], in particular ''[[Charlie Parker with Strings]]'' recorded in 1949. Atzmon said of the album that he "loved the way the music is both beautiful and subversive – they way he basks in the strings but also fights against them."<ref name=Lewis
/%252F> He worked with top bands as a musical producer.<ref>Barnaby Smith, [http://www.tourdates.co.uk/LondonTourdates/issue-007/2007/10/05/222-Sax-With-An-Axe-To-Grind Sax With An Axe To Grind], [http://www.tourdates.co.uk/ London Tour Dates], October 5, 2007.</ref>

In 1994,<ref name="RainLore  %2520bio">{{cite web
|url=http://www.rainloresworldofmusic.net/Artists/Artists_A-D/Atzmon_Gilad.html
|title=Profile – Gilad Atzmon
|accessdate=2008-10-28
|date=March 21, 2003
|publisher=Rainlore's World of Music
}}
</ref> Atzmon emigrated from Israel to London, where he attended the [[University of Essex]]<ref>[http://www.essex.ac.uk/news/2007/nr20071214.htm University of Essex news release],
Dec 14, 2007 notes Atzmon is a "graduate."</ref> and earned a Masters degree in Philosophy.<ref name="CryFreedom"/> He has lived there since,<ref name=gilchrist222/%252F> becoming a British citizen in 2002.<ref name="St. %252E%2520Clair"/>

==Music==
While Atzmon's main instrument is the alto [[saxophone]], he also plays soprano, tenor and baritone saxophones and [[clarinet]], [[Sol (instrument)|sol]], [[zurna]] and [[flute]].<ref name="GMF-GA" /> Atzmon's jazz style has been described as [[bebop]]/[[hard bop]], with forays into [[free jazz]] and [[Swing music|swing]], and seemingly inspired by [[John Coltrane]] and [[Miles Davis]].<ref name="RainLore  %2520bio" /> Atzmon sometimes plays the alto and soprano sax simultaneously.<ref name="RainLore  %2520bio" />

Atzmon's works have also explored the music of the Middle East, [[North Africa]], and [[Eastern Europe]].<ref name="Atzmonhomepage">{{cite web
|url=http://www.gilad.co.uk/index.html
|title=GILAD ATZMON – MUSICIAN, COMPOSER, PRODUCER, EDUCATOR, WRITER 
|accessdate=2008-10-28
|last=Atzmon
|first=Gilad
|year=2007
|publisher=Gilad Atzmon
}}
</ref> Atzmon told ''The Guardian'' that he draws on [[Arabic music]] which he says cannot be notated like western music but must be internalised, which he calls "reverting to the primacy of the ear." Atzmon's musical method has been to play with notions of cultural identity, flirting with genres such as tango and klezmer as well as various Arabic, Balkan, Gypsy and Ladino folk forms. Atzmon's recordings deliberately differ from his live shows. "I don't think that anyone can sit in a house, at home, and listen to me play a full-on bebop solo. It's too intense. My albums need to be less manic."<ref name=Lewis/%252F>

Atzmon has created the "Benny Hill-like alter ego – a fanatical Zionist" Artie Fishel, on the album ''Artie Fishel & the Promised Band'', which has been described as "musical anarchy."<ref name="BBC-AF">{{cite web
|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/release/grp2/
|title=Gilad Atzmon: Artie Fishel And The Promised Band
|accessdate=2008-10-28
|last=Shackleton
|first=Kathryn 
(contracted; show full)
[[BBC News]], January 25, 2007.</ref> He has also recorded and performed with [[Shane McGowan]], [[Robbie Williams]], [[Sinéad O'Connor]], [[Robert Wyatt]] and [[Paul McCartney]].<ref name="GMF-GA" /><ref name="Atzmonhomepage" /> He has recorded two albums with Robert Wyatt, who describes him as "one of the few musical geniuses I've ever met".<ref name=Lewis
/%252F>

Atzmon has collaborated, recorded and performed with musicians from all around the world, including the Palestinian singer, [[Reem Kelani]], Tunisian singer and [[oud]] player [[Dhafer Youssef]], violinist [[Marcel Mamaliga]], accordion player [[Romano Viazzani]], bassist [[Yaron Stavi]], violinist and trumpet-violin player, [[Dumitru Ovidiu Fratila]], and [[Guillermo Rozenthuler]] on vocals.<ref name="RainLore  %2520bio" />

Atzmon founded the '''Orient House Ensemble''' band in London in the 1990s and is currently touring with them.<ref name="Atzmonhomepage" /> The band includes Asaf Sirkis on drums, Yaron Stavi on bass and Frank Harrison on keyboard.<ref name="Atzmonhomepage" /> It has produced five albums in eight years.<ref name=Shackleton>Kathryn Shackleton, [http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/release/5vp2/ Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ense(contracted; show full)
:''EjazzNews'': "For sheer improvisational fireworks, quirky humour and genre-defying invention, one will be hard-pressed to find a bandleader as unique as Gilad Atzmon." ("EjazzNews," September 2008)<ref>John Stevenson, [http://www.ejazznews.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News
&file=article&sid=9791&mode=thread&order=0&thold=%2526amp%253Bfile%253Darticle%2526amp%253Bsid%253D9791%2526amp%253Bmode%253Dthread%2526amp%253Border%253D0%2526amp%253Bthold%253D0 Gilad Atzmon liberates the Americans: Orient House Ensemble, Ronnie Scott’s London, August 30th 2008], [http://ejazznews.com EJazzNews.com], September 01, 2008.</ref>
:[[BBC]]: "...the OHE is finding its voice in an increasingly subtle blend of East and West, that’s brutal and beautiful."<ref name=Shackleton/%252F>

In November 2008 Chris Searle launched his book ''Forward Groove: Jazz and the Real World from Louis Armstrong to Gilad Atzmon'' at the [[London Jazz Festival]]. It "chronicles the development of jazz and its great exponents" alongside social developments and political protest movements. The reviewer noted that "the torch continues to be carried by contemporary musicians such as Israeli-born alto saxman Gilad Atzmon who dreams of a free and united Palestine."<(contracted; show full)

While the music journalist John Lewis praises much of Atzmon's work, he notes that "trenchant politics often sit uneasily alongside music, particularly when that music is instrumental." Lewis criticized his 2006 comedy klezmer project, "Artie Fishel and the Promised Band," as "a clumsy satire on what he regards as the artificial nature of Jewish identity politics."<ref name=Lewis
/%252F>

===Awards===
Atzmon was the recipient of the HMV Top Dog Award at the Birmingham International Jazz Festival in 1996–1998.<ref name="RainLore  %2520bio" /> Gilad Atzmon's ''Exile'' was [[BBC]] jazz album of the year in 2003.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/entertainment/3107607.stm Jazz winners span generations], [[BBC]], July 30, 2003.</ref>

==Writing==

Gilad Atzmon is a prolific writer, the author of two novels and many published papers and regular blog entries which he makes available on his personal website.<ref>[http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/ Writings section] at Gilad Atzmon web site.</ref> 

===Novels===
Atzmon's novels have been published in 22 languages. His first novel ''[[A Guide to the Perplexed]]'', published in 2001, is set in a future where by 2052 Israel has been replaced by a Palestinian state for 40 years. It largely reviews memoirs of the alienated Israeli Gunther Wunker’s rise to fame as a "peepologist," or voyeur. The perplexed are defined as "the unthinking Chosen" who "cling to clods of earth that don't belong to them." The novel excoriates what it describes as the commercialization of the Holocaust and "argues that the Holocaust is invoked as a kind of reflexive propaganda designed to shield the Zionist state from responsibility for any transgression against Palestinians."<ref name="St. %252E%2520Clair"/> A reviewer for ''[[The Independent]]'' wrote that "Those who still thrill to the pages of Sixties underground "comix" may find some of this amusing, however laboured. Yet even those semi-sympathetic to its politics will find it cheap and "provocative" in the worst possible sense." He also wrote that the book has "just enough connection with reality to give it a certain unsettling power" but concludes "His writing, alas, repres(contracted; show full)07.</ref> and ''Middle East Online''.<ref> Examples of Gilad Atzmon in ''Middle East Online:'' [http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/culture/?id=34492 Vengeance, Barbarism and Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds], September 22, 2009; [http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/Default.pl?id=35102 Autumn in Shanghai], October 20, 2009.</ref> He was a co-founder of and former contributor to the web site [[Palestine Think Tank]]<ref name=Lewis
/%252F>.

In 2009 [[Turkey|Turkish]] prime minister [[Recep Tayyip Erdoğan]] cited Atzmon's written comment "Israeli barbarity is far beyond even ordinary cruelty" during a debate with Israeli president [[Shimon Peres]].<ref name="Lewis">John Lewis, [http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/mar/06/gilad-atzmon-israel-jazz-interview#history-byline "Manic beat preacher"], ''[[The Guardian]]'', 6 March 2009.</ref> In an opinion piece about the "m(contracted; show full) racist which I am not or have an ideological disagreement with Zionism, which I have."<ref name=1001Lies>Gilad Atzmon, [http://gilad.co.uk/html%20files/1001lies.html 1001 Lies About Gilad Atzmon], at his personal web site.</ref> Atzmon defines himself as an "ex-Jew"<ref>Gilad Atzmon, [http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/a-new-jewish-goal-by-gilad-atzmon.html A New Jewish Goal], at his personal web site.</ref>  and a "proud self-hating Jew"<ref name=Panayides
/%252F> and questions "the ties between a Jewish world view and Zionism."<ref name=1001Lies/%252F> He states that he does not attack Jews or Judaism but Zionism and what he calls “Jewishness,” which he describes as "very much a supremacist, racist tendency."<ref name="gilchrist222"/>

==Discography==
*''"In loving memory of America"'' – Label: Enja – January 2009
*''Refuge'' – Label: Enja – October 2007
*''Artie Fishel and the Promised Band'' – Label: WMD – September 2006
(contracted; show full)*[http://www.gilad.co.uk/ Gilad Atzmon web site]
* [http://www.myspace.com/giladatzmon Gilad Atzmon official myspace page]
*[http://www.archive.org/details/GiladAtzmonOnArabvoices.netJune2009 Gilad Atzmon on KPFT ArabVoices.net June 2009 during visit to Houston, Texas]
*[http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/opinion/?id=21321 Gilad Atzmon Interviewed by Mary Rizzo], July, 2007.

<!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]] -->
{{Persondata
|
NAMEname=Atzmon,%252C Gilad
|ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
|SHORT DESCRIPTION=Israeli musician and political activist
|DATE OF BIRTH=June 9, 1963
|PLACE OF BIRTH=[[Tel Aviv]], [[Israel]]
|DATE OF DEATH=
|PLACE OF DEATH=
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Atzmon, Gilad}}
[[Category:1963 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:People from Tel Aviv]]
[[Category:Bebop saxophonists]]
[[Category:Hard bop saxophonists]]
[[Category:Jazz saxophonists]]
[[Category:Writers on Zionism]]
[[Category:Jewish anti-Zionism]]
[[Category:Antisemitism]]



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