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Promise of Return by Lena Bloch

From the album

Album Title: Rose Of Lifta
Label: Fresh Sound Records
Released: 2021

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About the Album

Promise of Return is the opening track from Rose of Lifta by Lena Bloch and her quartet Feathery with pianist Russ Lossing, bassist Cameron Brown and drummer Billy Mintz (October 8, 2021, Fresh Sound Records). “I am from there. I am from here. / I am not there and I am not here.” So wrote Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, a guiding inspiration for an album of stunning original music by Russian-born saxophonist Lena Bloch and Feathery. The yearning, soulful recording's seven tracks explore themes of exile, loss, and home, all subjects closely connected to Bloch’s personal story, which traverses Russia, Israel, Holland, Germany, graduate studies, a few years of work, and finally immigration to the United States. This is Bloch’s second Feathery recording, following up the acclaimed 2017 Heart Knows. She once again demonstrates her three-tier excellence as a saxophonist, composer, and bandleader whose approach nurtures listening, trust, and musical freedom. “We prefer to not have any particular arrangements of our compositions,” she says. “The less safe we all feel, the better it is for the music.” Founded in 2014, Feathery Quartet draws its inspiration from diverse musical traditions: jazz, Middle Eastern, Eastern European, 20th and 21st century classical music. It performs original compositions written by Bloch and Lossing. Based on collective improvising, Feathery's musical approach consists of blurring the lines between composition and spontaneous invention, and between written and improvised sections. The ensemble's name refers to lightness, flexibility, readiness to drift in the new directions - like a feather in the wind. DownBeat says of Feathery, “rippling energy and sublimely weightless interplay.” The quartet released Heart Knows on Fresh Sound Records in 2017, receiving high praise in American and international publications. Lena Bloch is a Russian-born saxophonist, composer and bandleader, based in New York since 2008. She has been leading her own chamber groups, performing original music since 1990, in Israel, Europe and the United States, including Red Sea Jazz Festival (Israel), Leverkusener Jazz Tage and Ingolstaedter Jazz Tage (Germany), Jazz Lent Maribor (Slovenia), Voronezh Jazz Festival (Russia), Washington Women in Jazz Festival, Vermont Jazz Center Festival, and Temple of the Arts Festival (United States). As a saxophonist she worked with Embryo, Steve Reid, Mala Waldron, Roberta Piket, Sumi Tonooka, Vishnu Wood, Harvey Diamond, Sebastien Ammann and many other American and European bandleaders.

Tracks

Promise Of Return; Mad Mirror; New Home; Climbing Rose Of Lifta; Old Home; Mahmoud Darwish; Wintry Mix.

Personnel

Reviews

Rose Of Lifta by Dan McClenaghan

Date featured

October 23, 2021

This song appears by permission of the contributing artist and/or record company.
It is for personal use only; no other rights are granted or implied.

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