Gilad and All That Jazz

"A Jew? Maybe a Black Jew!"
I am a great fan of Gilad Atzmon's music and an admirer of his daring writings so I consider myself a hard-to-please critic of any Atzmoniad singing about "the sax and the man," but I found this short movie highly satisfactory in all regards.
The movie does an excellent presentation of Atzmon as the outstanding sax player of his generation, as was remarked by A. Theokopoulos in her review on deLiberation:

"The scoring of the movie -- Gilad's pieces with middle-eastern influences as well as classic Charlie Parker standbys -- is jazz at its best and a delight throughout the film. He reminisces that in his adolescence, having first heard the Bird on the radio and then discovered that he was black, he thought to himself:
"Black?! Maybe he is a Black Jew."
Perhaps somewhere up there the Bird hears Gilad's sax and wonders:
"A Jew?! Maybe he is a Black Jew."

It also throws a revealing light -- through interviews of Artzmon and those who know him-- on...

Good doc
A friend who had seen this doc in a festival recommended it. I watched it mainly because I'm a Jazz fan, and I like Gilad's music. It was somewhat of a surprise when it turned out to be more than just his music, but also his relationship with his homeland, Israel. The doc explores Gilad's personal views and it's origins on political matters involving Israel and how it all relates to his music. All the great Jazz didn't hurt of course.

I thoroughly enjoyed this doc.



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