Rabble Without A Cause
Wednesday May 22nd, 2013 with Bernard Stepien
Montreal’s Siach Hasadeh project

If you missed Montreal clarinetist Yoni Kaston’s Siach Hasadeh project last Sunday at IMOO, here is your second chance. Yoni Kaston played IMOO not too long ago in a pure Free Jazz configuration with all the dissonances and rhythmic upheaval but last Sunday’s concert was in a total different sphere. This time he brought more of a chamber music configuration that had two essential features: first the band, a collection of texture with a cello, a harmonica and the middle- eastern Ud besides more Jazz instruments by definition clarinet and bass, second the repertoire, yet another collection but this time of very old Jewish songs from all over central Europe and the middle east. More important may be was what they all did with this material/configuration, namely just play the songs, with great parsimony, as if the songs were loaded with enough emotions and just letting the contrasts in texture do its job. Even the clarinet playing was melancholic without any of the happy hype of related Klezmer music, one of those melancholies that get through your bones. This also means no improvisation in the sense of extended overwhelming Jazz blowing as if the songs contained enough emotion that was mostly underlined or highlighted by Turkish Ud player Ismail Fencioglu that is a master in contained Taksim interpretation. All of this of course prompted me to open my wallet and purchase instantly their CD that I will feature tonight.