Three years ago, Yonatan Kretzmer, the saxophonist of the young jazz combo The Rats, returned to Jerusalem after two years spent studying in Paris. A few days after he landed, he attended a performance at the Lab, and there he realized something good had happened to the Jerusalem jazz scene while he had been gone.

"The musicians playing at the club were excellent," he recalls. "They played original, very Israeli, catchy jazz. When I left, it would have been rare to find anything like that here. What astonished me just as much was that people came to the club without knowing what they were going to hear, as though they knew that whatever it would be, they would enjoy themselves. This was a marvelous experience, and it gave me a lot of energy."

Jerusalem jazz has indeed blossomed of late, but before we describe it and try to examine what caused this, it is worth hedging. Members of the Jerusalem jazz scene say that more people have become open to the music in recent years. Producer and journalist Uriel Kun, who recently edited the collection "Jazz Jerusalem," goes so far as to say that "every time you go out, you meet someone on the way to a performance." However, the jazz scene was and remains very small: five or six bars, one club, a few dozen musicians and several hundred fans. That's all. The brave attempt last summer to break through the bounds of the local scene and produce an international jazz festival was a total economic failure, even though it was an artistic success. "Most of Jerusalem's jazz scene is not in performances, but rather in people's heads. It's a potential scene," says saxophonist Natan Haber.

	Advertisement

When Haber says "in people's heads," he is referring to the musicians, and in this respect Jerusalem jazz has indeed been undergoing a small renaissance lately. In recent months Jerusalem musicians have issued about 10 albums, which testify both to the impressive creative impetus of the local scene and to the broad stylistic variety that characterizes it.

Last week, the artistic program of next month's Jazz Tel Aviv festival was published, and it confirms the sense that Jerusalem has become an important station on the map of Israeli jazz: Of the five Israeli ensembles scheduled to play at the festival, two come from Jerusalem - Haber's quartet, and Julia Feldman's ensemble. Another group, saxophonist Daniel Zamir and pianist Omri Mor, is half-Jerusalemite.

No jam sessions

Jerusalem jazz defines itself relative to Tel Aviv jazz. Here, too, it is necessary to hedge. When discussing international jazz, it is customary to make clear distinctions between East Coast and West Coast U.S. jazz, and between American jazz and European jazz. In light of Israel's small jazz scene, it's a little ridiculous to divide what is happening here into separate geographic scenes. Nevertheless, Haber, Kretzmer, Feldman and Kun assert that it is definitely possible to talk about the Jerusalem sound versus the Tel Aviv sound.

"To make a somewhat gross generalization, the jazz they play in Tel Aviv is a local version of New York jazz," says Kretzmer. "This is rhythmic music that pushes forward, music that comes out of the hard bop of the 1950s, very attentive to technique, sometimes even polished, and I'm not saying this disparagingly. We, to generalize grossly again, are closer to European jazz. Music that has a heavier mood, and is less attentive to technique and more attentive to the color of the sound."

Haber, whose music is in fact closer to African-American jazz than European jazz, points out an interesting fact: There are no jazz trumpeters in Jerusalem. "The trumpet is an instrument that isn't suited to small spaces like bars and cafes, and perhaps it is also not suited to the Jerusalem atmosphere," he says.

One of the symbols of Tel Aviv jazz is the jam session held every Monday at the club Shablul. Kretzmer is speaking for Jerusalem when he says there is nothing he hates more than a jam session. "We've given up a bit on being the ultimate instrumentalists," he says.

Kun adds: "Tel Aviv jazz's approach is entertainment, an immediate celebration of the imagination, while Jerusalem jazz's approach is existentialist, to change the soul."

"Jerusalem is more abstract," adds Haber. "Something in this city brings you to more abstract thinking. Maybe it's the mountain air," he adds with a smile. "There's a feeling that you're in a place with significance beyond the material. And this affects the way the audience listens to music. When I play in Tel Aviv, I feel like I'm in the background; here the people are more attentive. This influences the playing a lot. It makes you play differently."

There is also a prosaic reason behind the differences between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. "In Tel Aviv there are more opportunities," he says. "Tel Aviv is a place where you go in order to succeed, or at least to earn a living. And in order to make a living, you have to play straight, New York music. The Jerusalemites in spirit are those who have come to terms with the fact that jazz isn't going to earn them a living."

Thanks to Arnie Lawrence

When Haber, Kretzmer, Feldman and Kun are asked what brought about Jerusalem's recent jazz awakening, one name comes up repeatedly: Arnie Lawrence. Lawrence, a saxophonist, came to Jerusalem in the mid-1990s after a glorious career as an instrumentalist and educator in New York. He was already in his 60s, but with the help of contagious charisma and indefatigable energy, he created a jazz scene in the city almost single-handedly.

"Before Arnie there were two conservatories in the city, and they had almost no work. The moment he arrived and started to play in all kinds of holes, they started running and working non-stop," says Kun.

Lawrence, who died two years ago, greatly influenced Jerusalem's jazz musicians. Not only was he a role model, he also founded a music center where he taught dozens of teenagers who are now leading the city's jazz scene.

Haber notes an additional, surprising reason behind Jerusalem's jazz renaissance. "The difficult national situation, the intifada, and the political and economic pressure make artists need to express themselves. This is especially obvious in jazz, which is the music of direct expression. I don't know about other musicians, but I feel this about myself. I left jazz quite a few years ago, and until 2002 I wasn't thinking about returning. Why should I play in front of five people again? Argue with club proprietors about NIS 50? But all of a sudden, in the middle of the catastrophe here, I felt a tremendous need to play jazz. All of a sudden, it just burst out of me."