Yotam Ben-Or interview

Yotam Ben-Or joins me on episode 107.

Yotam is a chromatic player who attended the Tel-Aviv Music Conservatory, making a name for himself on the Israeli music scene before winning a scholarship to study at The New School for Jazz in New York, age 21.

Although predominately a jazz player, Yotam is keen to emphasise the diverse range of genres this encapsulates, including world music and South American influences on his music. Yotam has  previously released two albums under his own name, with a third coming out in 2025. Many of the songs on these albums are composed by Yotam as he helps to push the chromatic in new and exciting directions.

Links:
Yotam's website:
https://www.yotambo.com/


Videos:
Yotam Ben-Or Quartet live at Festival da Jazz St. Moritz:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GI9HM6NqCY

Satla song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv6zOhUKa6o

MiLiM song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tGBXF0nHw4

Live at Carnegie Hall:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wmKRaXdW9A

Live in Switzerland:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GI9HM6NqCY

Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS

Chapters

• 1:42 Based in New York, but is from Israel and has a Belgian mother
• 2:06 Does Belgian heritage explain affinity to the chromatic? (Due to Toots Thielemans link)
• 2:37 The status which Toots Thielemans is held in Belgium
• 3:40 Yotam started playing age 11, and was taught by his uncle, initially on piano but soon discovered his love of the chromatic harmonica
• 4:19 Continues to play piano now, using the instrument to compose, but chromatic is main instrument
• 4:36 Doesn’t see a strong similarity between piano and chromatic, thinking of them separately as he plays them
• 5:31 Played alto saxophone at in middle school and high school as no teachers for chromatic available, but from age 18 chromatic was main instrument
• 6:16 Also plays some percussion to help with other music genres interested in
• 6:30 When recording with jazz quartet, plays chromatic and some piano
• 6:57 Also has a singer songwriter project where Yotam also does some singing
• 7:12 Deliberations EP has five songs with Yotam singing in Hebrew
• 7:47 Went to the Tel Aviv Conservatory of Music, which has a collaboration with The New School in New York
• 8:12 Received a scholarship to move to New York where he was able to formally study the chromatic harmonica
• 8:56 Won scholarship for New School in New York through an audition held in Tel Aviv
• 9:19 How Yotam has found the music scene in New York
• 9:32 How got into playing jazz and the dream to play and live in New York
• 10:57 Also deeply into other styles beyond jazz, such as Cuban music
• 11:33 Yotam’s song ‘Astar’ has influences from Venezuela, where the pianist from the band is from
• 12:08 The shift in time signature in the song Star
• 13:17 Other South American players who have been on the podcast and how that music works so well on chromatic
• 13:44 Received some mentoring from Gregoire Maret
• 15:06 Yotam has lived in New York since 2014, but travelled to other places during that time, including Mexico, Israel and Europe
• 15:56 Now more permanently based in New York and the number of great musicians who live there
• 16:35 Mainly playing in New York at present but has a manager in Europe to arrange gigs
• 17:38 Locations played in Europe
• 17:55 First album Yotam appears on is with the Jupiter Group, the best young Israeli jazz, when Yotam was still a student
• 19:30 Formed own band in 2015, from International players who met at The New School in New York
• 20:55 First album under own name is Sitting On A Cloud, released in 2018, all original compositions by Yotam
• 21:22 Yotam approaches composing by playing the piano and singing the melodic phrases, later translating those to chromatic
• 22:00 Often selects the key of the piece to one which works well on the chromatic
• 22:30 Only uses chromatic in the key of C, although is considering using other keys too
• 23:54 Interplay with keyboard and chromatic on the Viva Hermoto Pascoal song on Sitting On A Cloud album
• 24:18 Uses an octave pedal on the song Ebb and Flow and other effects Yotam uses
• 24:53 Modern sound to Yotam’s compositions comes from different flavours of jazz
• 25:21 Influences on his music come from singer songwriters from native Israel and also classical music
• 26:08 Has learnt classical pieces on the chromatic but no recordings of them yet
• 28:02 New York brought a vast world of rhythm to Yotam’s attention, which he incorporates into his music
• 29:20 Speak Love song which has multiple harmonicas, recorded by Yotam
• 30:59 Loose Pace is three songs Yotam was commissioned to record for a video
• 31:59 Second album, released in 2022: Endless Deliberations, made up of one EP of instrumentals and one EP of vocals sung by Yotam
• 33:56 Satla is an instrumental from the Endless EP
• 34:24 Forza Roma is another song from the Endless EP, written after playing a gig in Rome when the football team Roma defeated Barcelona and people were on the streets celebrating
• 35:36 New album currently in development, being released in 2025, with a working title of ‘Trying’
• 38:32 Kafka song may have drawn inspiration from Toot’s song Bluesette
• 39:11 Still adding some other musicians onto the album before releasing it in 2025
• 40:04 Recorded a song on diatonic but he doesn’t really play the instrument
• 40:57 When composing songs, decides the chord structure, the melody, and then leaves room for improvisation
• 42:13 Has performed in prestigious venues including: Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center and The Blue Note
• 43:21 Won first prize in the Rostov International Jazz competition in 2013
• 44:00 10 minute question
• 44:48 Typical practise routine involves working on current repertoire, including learning the song on the piano then the harmonica, learning the melody and the chords
• 45:33 Learns some conga rhythms on the harmonica
• 45:53 Transcribing parts on to the harmonica from every instrument, with melodic instruments like trumpet and saxophone, and also singers and piano
• 48:20 Chromatic of choice is the Suzuki Sirius 56 (14 hole) and why likes 14 hole
• 48:50 Doesn’t like the sound of the lower notes on the 16 hole
• 49:04 Trumpet and flute has notes lower than middle C, which are missing on a 12 hole chromatic, particularly the low G
• 49:42 Used to play the Hohner 64 (16 hole) when younger
• 50:03 The transition to 14 hole has been challenging at times
• 50:33 Hasn’t tried the DM48 midi chromatic, but would like to
• 51:04 Embouchre is puckering
• 51:21 Thinks of himself as a musician and not a harmonica player and something which the world of harmonica is missing somewhat
• 53:54 For live playing uses SM58 or a condenser Sennheiser mic
• 54:50 For recording uses his own Neumann TLM102 combined with a Shure SM7B
• 55:32 If recording in a studio likes the combination of a large condenser and a ribbon mic (to add some darkness to the sound)
• 56:07 Future plans is release of album in 2025, and currently gigging in New York and plans to tour Europe in October 2024 and touring new album in Spring of 2025
• 56:52 Yotam is currently thirty years old, so lots to come from him in the future

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Yotam Ben-Or joins me on episode 107. Yotam is a chromatic player who attended the Tel Aviv Music Conservatory, making a name for himself on the Israeli music scene, before winning a scholarship to study at the New School for Jazz in New York, age 21. Although predominantly a jazz player, Yotam is keen to emphasise the diverse range of genres this encapsulates, including world music and South American influences on his own music. Yotam has previously released two albums under his own name, with a third coming out in 2025. Many of the songs on these albums are composed by Yotam, as he helps to push the chromatic in new and exciting directions. This podcast is sponsored by Zeidel Harmonicas. Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.zidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zidel Harmonicas. Hello, Yotam Ben-Or, and welcome to the podcast. Hello, hello. Neil, how are you? Thanks so much for joining today, Yotam. So you're now based in New York, but I think you've had quite an interesting journey to get to New York. So let's explore that first. I think you were born in Israel, but to Belgian parents. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:53

Almost correct. Only my mom is Belgian, and I was born in Israel. My dad is Israeli. Yeah, and I grew up in Israel. And I moved to New York when I was 21.

SPEAKER_00: 2:06

Great. So your mother was from Belgium. So you're a chromatic player. Correct. Does that explain the chromatic, the two's connection? Is there something there? Well...

SPEAKER_01: 2:16

I wouldn't say that I started playing the harmonica because I am half Belgian, but definitely I started playing at a young age, and obviously Toots is the model for chromatic harmonica players, and I definitely liked the idea that he's Belgian and I'm Belgian as well.

SPEAKER_00: 2:36

Great, yeah. I mean, it might just be interesting just to cover from someone who has at least got Belgian heritage about, you know, what does Toots mean in Belgium? I think he, you know, he's a huge name there, isn't he?

SPEAKER_01: 2:47

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Toots is... is is a huge name obviously in the jazz world worldwide and belgians are very proud of the fact that yeah that he's from there

SPEAKER_00: 3:01

yeah because i think obviously like you say in the jazz world he's very well known but obviously as harmonica players we all revere him of course but you know for a for an actual country to see a harmonica player as one of the real you know heroes that's uh must be quite a novel situation these days

SPEAKER_01: 3:16

yeah yeah that's true

SPEAKER_00: 3:17

yeah and of course when when he died a few years ago there was lots of 100 birthday celebrations a few years ago, weren't there, to celebrate that all around Belgium. Yeah, so a real well-known figure in Belgium,

SPEAKER_03: 3:27

yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 3:40

So I understand you started playing at the age of 11, and you were taught by your uncle.

SPEAKER_01: 3:45

Yeah, something like that, 10, 11, and I went. My uncle is a music teacher, primarily piano. At schools also, elementary school, and he's doing a lot of things related to teaching music. And I went to take some piano lessons with him when I was about 10 years old. And he started playing harmonica at that time, just for fun. He liked this instrument. And then he gave me harmonica, and I really liked it. And I just... It stuck, you know?

SPEAKER_00: 4:17

So did you carry on playing piano, and do you still play piano now?

SPEAKER_01: 4:22

I do play some piano, yes. I write music on the piano. I'm far from being a virtuoso on the piano, and I'm not like a... I'm a professional pianist, but I can play piano, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 4:36

So what about that similarity between the chromatic and the piano? It's laid out in a very similar linear fashion. Do you think of them in similar sort of ways because of that?

SPEAKER_01: 4:48

No, I'm not thinking about the harmonica as a piano. I'm thinking about the harmonica as a harmonica and the piano as a piano. And sometimes people ask me when I think about the notes, if I think about the piano or a harmonica. It depends. Sometimes I think about it as a piano. I imagine the piano. Sometimes I imagine the harmonica.

SPEAKER_00: 5:10

Clearly, one major difference is the ability to play many different chords on the piano that you can't play on a chromatic chord. Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 5:16

That's another thing.

SPEAKER_00: 5:18

There are plenty of chromatic players who do play piano and maybe went from piano to chromatic or or vice versa so yeah it does seem to be a definite connection between the two so yeah but fantastic yeah so do you play any other instruments besides piano and chromatic harmonica

SPEAKER_01: 5:35

so first of all when I went to when I started middle school I went to a music school and I had to pick up another instrument not the harmonica because because it's not there were no teachers for harmonica etc so I played saxophone alto saxophone when I was in middle school and high school And I always kind of kept on playing the harmonica, but not at school, not in ensembles. But slowly, I kind of brought it back to be my main instrument. And when I was 18, I was already barely touching the saxophone. I was mainly playing harmonica. And I also played some percussion. Yeah, that's another instrument that some congas, some cajon, that are helping me to study different types of music that I'm interested in.

SPEAKER_00: 6:30

But when you're recording your albums and then playing with others, are you playing just the chromatic these days?

SPEAKER_01: 6:37

So I have a quartet, like a jazz quartet that I play with mainly. So when I play with the quartet, yes, I play the chromatic harmonica and then there's a piano player, there's a bass and drums and some drums. guests here and there but in each of my albums there's a couple songs that i play the piano and besides that i also have like more of a singer-songwriter project in which i write the songs and and i play piano and i sing and play some harmonica sometimes i also record some percussion

SPEAKER_00: 7:12

Great, yeah, so on your Deliberations EP, there's quite a lot of vocals on there. I think there's five songs with lyrics, isn't it? And that's sung in Hebrew, so that's you singing, is it?

SPEAKER_01: 7:21

Yeah, it's me singing on this.

SPEAKER_00: 7:23

You know, very nice, fine voice you've got there, too. And the Hebrew sounds very beautiful.

SPEAKER_02: 7:29

And the earth and the sky and the people And you, O God, on the seventh day The Lord who made So

SPEAKER_00: 7:43

going back to your development and your early life of playing, so I understand that you went to the Tel Aviv Conservatory for music, and that's where you studied after high school?

SPEAKER_01: 7:54

Yeah, when I was about 18 I moved to Tel Aviv and I went to, there's a conservatory there that has a collaborative program with the New School in New York. So I did two years there. Actually, three. I kind of spread two years over three years. And then I got a scholarship to move to New York and study and finish my bachelor degree at the New School in New York.

SPEAKER_00: 8:21

Great. And were you able to study the chromatic at the school there, or did you have to play the piano and saxophone, as you've said?

SPEAKER_01: 8:28

Yeah, there I was already playing harmonica, and they had to accept it.

SPEAKER_00: 8:38

Yeah, because it's a familiar story with other people I've spoken to that it can be a challenge to, like you say, get teachers for the chromatic and to get it accepted onto these courses.

SPEAKER_01: 8:47

No, I had some teachers and none of them were harmonica players. Obviously, I studied with saxophone players, piano players, etc.

SPEAKER_00: 8:56

And so you won a scholarship, as you say. So what did you have to do for that?

SPEAKER_01: 9:00

An audition. They came to do some auditions in Tel Aviv. And they decided to give me a scholarship, which helped a lot, made it possible for me to come to New York.

SPEAKER_00: 9:14

So fantastic. So you're a jazz player. You've mentioned you've got a jazz quartet. So New York is the mecca of jazz, right? So what was that like moving to New York and going to study jazz there? And now you're a performing jazz musician there, right?

SPEAKER_01: 9:27

Yeah. So I started playing jazz in middle school. At first, when I started playing music and harmonica, I didn't know anything about jazz. My dad had one record, like a compilation of Louis Armstrong and Lafayette Gerald and some singers. That was pretty much it, what I knew about jazz. And then, yeah, I went to middle school and there I met some friends that were playing jazz and I started getting into it. checking it out listening to it playing it with friends and then i also started hearing you know stories about new york and the the clubs in new york the like smalls and the jazz gallery and uh blue note obviously and etc and the players that live in new york and a lot of Israeli musicians that lived or live in New York. And it became like, you know, some kind of a dream to go to New York and see all of this. And then when I got the scholarship of it, it was big. I was very, very happy that I'll get to go to New York and see all of this in real life. And then I moved to New York, and I was very disappointed. No, I'm kidding. I wasn't disappointed. But I came here, yeah, and I got to hear all those incredible musicians. By the way, in jazz and not just in jazz, since moving to New York, I got very deep into other styles of music, which I was also a little bit into before I moved to New York. Rumba, for example, Cuban rumba, which I... really really love and and I'm studying this music and playing it and here in New York people forget that so jazz it's true that jazz is was developed a lot in New York but salsa for example is another style of music that was really born in New York so for example in a star You can hear there's the pianist in my band. His name is Gabriel, Gabriel Chakarhi, and he's from Venezuela. And he exposed me to a lot of music from Venezuela, rhythms like joropo and merengue. And for example, you can hear in A Star, there's this part in the middle that I'll get a little bit into technicalities or like specifics about the music. There's a part there, there's like two phrases. So the song is in 3-4. most of it and then there's this part that is like the B section is in 5-4 but it's two phrases of five three bars of five four so three bars of five four you can also divide it into five bars of three four and so i kind of played around with this and incorporated this rhythm called joropo which is in three four and and we started playing it with this rhythm in this part So that's an example of a style of music that I started listening to and studying and incorporated it into my music.

SPEAKER_00: 13:17

Yeah, and I've talked to various players and chromatic players from South America, for example, talking about Choro music, and it just sounds so beautiful on the chromatic. So it just works so well, doesn't it? So you're that sort of Latin South American influence. Absolutely, yeah. I'm

SPEAKER_01: 13:32

very much into a lot of music from Brazil also. Shoro is from Brazil.

SPEAKER_00: 13:38

So great. So yeah, as you say, you're in New York now and you're after studying there. So I understood you got some mentoring from Gregoire Moray.

SPEAKER_01: 13:48

Yeah, Gregoire is a mentor, friend, helped me a lot with a lot of things musically and beyond personally. And he's someone... I really appreciate and grateful for his help and directions that he gave me. Yeah, I met him actually in Israel. The first time I met him I was about maybe 17. He came to Israel to perform at the jazz festival. And I took a lesson with him, and since then I stayed in touch with him. And when I moved to New York, I got to spend more time with him. We actually at some point lived on the same block.

SPEAKER_00: 14:29

That's great to hear, because I imagine the chromatic harmonica world in New York might be quite small, so it's good to hear that he's happy to share that with you.

SPEAKER_01: 14:38

Yeah, Gregoire was very generous with me, and still... generous and opened

SPEAKER_03: 14:46

his

SPEAKER_00: 14:59

heart. Yeah, no, fantastic. Yeah, no, I've had Greg on the podcast. Yeah, great guy. And I've seen him play live a couple of times. That's cool. In London. So, so great. So you, so you moved to New York, I think you said in 2014. Yeah. yes was it so yeah so yeah you've been there 10 years now so you're well established on the scene what's life like as a chromatic player largely on the on the new york scene

SPEAKER_01: 15:20

yeah yeah it's um new york is a is a very tough place i i moved here in almost 10 years ago and there were some for example during the pandemic i kind of left about a year i was barely here in New York and then for actually quite a while since the pandemic until about a year ago I was in and out of the city a lot I went to Mexico also to play and study there and I was in Israel I was in Europe quite a lot I was upstate New York but eventually I came back here you know since I've been here quite a while I've been I know a lot of people and I get to play gigs and to teach also a lot. You know, when I said jokingly that I was disappointed, obviously it's not true, but when you live here for a while, it just becomes a place, you know? It's just a place with a lot of great musicians that live here. And actually... maybe too many great musicians.

SPEAKER_00: 16:32

Competitive, yeah. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 16:34

very competitive.

SPEAKER_00: 16:35

Do you mainly now play around New York or do you go outside of New York much to play as well?

SPEAKER_01: 16:41

This winter, like for a few months, I'm mostly here in New York. For a while I was trying to travel as much as possible, go play in Europe, in Mexico, outside of New York, in the US, go to Israel. It became a little too much and so now there's a period it's been yeah a few months that I'm mostly here in New York yeah playing gigs in the city and around the city but I'm still traveling sometimes I go to Europe I'm working with a manager now in Europe that is we also recorded a new album that he kind of co-produced with me that he like initiated the idea of of recording it, and he's helping us to get some gigs in Europe.

SPEAKER_00: 17:35

Yeah, great. Whereabouts will you be playing in Europe?

SPEAKER_01: 17:38

Where in Europe? I've been playing in Germany quite a lot, in Switzerland, in Belgium sometimes. Italy, we played quite a few times in Italy, even though we didn't go back there in a while. Hungary, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 17:53

Well, get into your recording career now. So the first album I've got you down is with the Jupiter Group. And this was part of, well, so it's an album of the best young Israeli jazz and recorded in 2013. So was this when you were still a student and was this, you know, part of your studies or?

SPEAKER_01: 18:28

Yeah, that was still in Israel. Avishai Cohen, the bass player, which some people might know, he decided to put together this album that was made of like four bands, I think, that he chose in Israel. And one of them was this band that I was a part of called Jupiter. We were... playing gigs and working for about two years, I would say. And then everyone moved to different places in the world. The bass player is actually, his name is Alon Nier. He's also the bass player in my quartet nowadays. And yeah, but everybody kind of moved all over.

SPEAKER_00: 19:11

Yeah, also some good recordings on there, picked out one called Jupiter.

UNKNOWN: 19:19

Jupiter

SPEAKER_00: 19:30

And then you formed your own band in 2015. So this is when you were obviously in New York. So you had your bass player across with you from Israel. Were the rest of the guys based in New York?

SPEAKER_01: 19:42

Yeah. So it was Alon on bass and Gabriel, which I mentioned, on piano. He's from Venezuela. We met in New York. We started the new school at the same time. The drummer, the first drummer was... David Jimenez, he's a Dominican drummer that I met at the New School as well. Then actually the first album was recorded with Ofri Nehemia, incredible drummer from Israel. And then there was another Israeli drummer, his name is Noam Israeli. with whom we recorded the second album, most of it. Ofri is actually on one of the tracks in the second album as well. And then we played for some times with an Argentinian drummer called Franco Pina, incredible drummer. And now in the past couple years, we've been playing with another Alon, Alon Benjamini, on drums that is also based in New York, but he is originally from Israel.

SPEAKER_00: 20:48

Yeah, so a very international flavor as a guest reflecting New York, right? So I know the great musicians go in there, yeah. So talking about your first album, I think in 2018 is Sitting on a Cloud. Yeah. Yeah, that's the first one you released under your own name. So this is all original compositions by you?

SPEAKER_01: 21:06

Correct, yeah.

UNKNOWN: 21:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 21:21

Yeah, fantastic. So how do you go about composing? You say earlier on you use a piano for that. How does that work with a chromatic? What's your thinking process?

SPEAKER_01: 21:32

Yeah, mostly I write on the piano and I sing. Sometimes I would play everything on the piano, but often I would sing and comp myself on the piano and find different parts on the piano and sing. And since I cannot play the harmonica and the piano at the same time, because I need my hand, I sing and play the piano. And then I just learn... the music on the harmonica, I would like pick maybe the key, usually according to what will sound good on the harmonica, like the key, like in terms of the range, not necessarily the key, like, yeah, like just based on the range, if, you know, the lowest note is this or that, or what will sound better on the harmonica in terms of, you know, to play in the middle or high

SPEAKER_00: 22:26

or... And are you usually playing a C chromatic in the key of C?

SPEAKER_01: 22:30

Yeah, I play only the chromatic in the key of C. Even though I am interested in trying out the chromatic in different keys, because there are certain things that you cannot do if you want to. You play with a singer, for example, that sings a song in E, and there are certain things that you cannot do in E. that you could do and see for example there's for example a song by uh javan brazilian singer composer that stevie is playing on it's called samurai And he's playing a harmonica in a different key. I'm not sure which key actually, but I know because I learned what he's playing and he's just playing like different trills and stuff like that, that you cannot do in this key.

SPEAKER_00: 23:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 23:39

Like if you play the, you know, the chromatic in C and I think the song is in E, you cannot... play the things that he's playing if you're using a chromatic harmonica in C.

SPEAKER_00: 23:52

Yeah, no, great. So this is a great first album you've made then. So there's quite a lot of interplay with this sort of keyboard synthesizer, like on the Vito, Emerto, Paschal, and... And then on the song Ebb and Flow, it sounds like you may be using an effect on the chromatic. You do this sort of bend on the chromatic, and it sounds like you've got... Are you using an effect on there?

SPEAKER_01: 24:27

Yes, in octaver.

UNKNOWN: 24:36

Ebb and Flow

SPEAKER_01: 24:43

Yeah, I do use some octavers, some flangers sometimes, chorus. I like to add those things here and there.

SPEAKER_00: 24:53

Great. And your music sounds, you know, it sounds very modern. and, you know, not traditional jazz. So you definitely brought a modern take on it, I think. Is that something you've tried to do?

SPEAKER_01: 25:03

I think that jazz also, when we say jazz, it's like maybe what you think about is more straight ahead, like swing, which I'm playing, but it's not the only thing that I do. And coming from Israel, and being exposed to, I would say, the main music that I grew up with is singer-songwriters. There's a great composer in Israel called Mati Caspi, and there's a band called Kavert, for example. A lot of singer-songwriters that I listen to. And then classical music. Yeah, I would say that the very first music that I was exposed to was classical music through a good friend of my family called Ronnie Porat, who's a conductor. We used to go to his concerts as kids. So that was something that was... exposed to

SPEAKER_00: 26:07

Did you spend some time learning classical music on the chromatic guitar?

SPEAKER_01: 26:12

Yeah, I'm definitely learning some pieces on the chromatic harmonica the cello suites that I really like Bach Yeah, mostly Bach, I would say. I got to some Telemann, I remember I learned, but like Baroque.

SPEAKER_00: 26:28

But no recordings of classical yet?

SPEAKER_01: 26:31

No, yeah, maybe one day I will record

SPEAKER_00: 26:34

it. But yeah, definitely see the value in learning the technique and the discipline of the classical music to help.

SPEAKER_01: 26:42

Yeah, and to study classical music in general in order to learn harmony, mostly learning Bach. on the piano some inventions some chorals yeah to like study the harmony

SPEAKER_00: 26:59

So I also noticed on the Sitting on the Cloud album on the song Leanne it's a great example of you playing a really beautiful melodic line and that's something which is really strong in your playing as well I think Yeah Is that

SPEAKER_01: 27:26

something you're

SPEAKER_00: 27:27

aiming for?

SPEAKER_01: 27:28

Yeah, definitely. All of my music is singable. The melodies are very lyrical. By the way, I'm Israeli and also my mom, for example, is a huge fan of Jacques Brel, the Belgian singer. And then I moved to New York and I was exposed to this vast world of rhythm from Africa via Central and South America. A lot of African-American music, actually. that I always try to study more and get deeper into and incorporate these elements into my music. Like you mentioned, Viva Hermeto Pascual, for example, from my song. It's in 7, 7-4, but there's some kind of Cuban music. There's the strong beat is on the four. It's like, they call it the big four. So in this song, in Meta Pascual, there's like a big seven, kind of. It's like a... It's like this emphasis on the last beat before the one. Yeah, so this is an example.

SPEAKER_00: 29:20

Yeah, so going through a few more of your recordings then. So you released what is down as a single on Spotify called Speak Love. There seems to be two harmonicas on this song. Is that right? And is that you playing with someone else or is it you doing both?

SPEAKER_01: 29:36

Yeah, it's more than two actually. It's like I record a few takes and then I just mix between takes at the same time a little bit like in um and too high stevie wonder inspired by this

SPEAKER_00: 30:15

Here's a word from my sponsor. Looking for a new harmonica? Or maybe you just want to replace the replays on an existing harp? Theharmonicacompany.com is a place to go for all your harmonica needs. They stock a wide range of harmonicas and accessories from all of the major manufacturers and always ensure that they ship quickly, offer excellent customer service and are super competitive on price. Go to theharmonicacompany.com and enter the code HAPPYHOUR7 at the checkout to get an additional 7% off the already low prices. Have a question or need advice? Just drop Jonathan a line on sales at theharmonicacompany.com and he'll be happy to help. The discount code and email address are also listed on the podcast page. He released a single with three songs on called Loose Pace.

SPEAKER_01: 31:04

That was actually like an EP, like three tracks, but it's like music for video. And so they basically commissioned it for me to record three solo harmonica in different moods. I don't really include this CD in my discography, for example. I like it, there's some things that I like about it, but it's very specific. for this purpose. But it was interesting for me to do it, to just record solo harmonica.

SPEAKER_00: 31:59

So your second main album then, it was split in two, I think I mentioned earlier, and you had the Endless EP, which has five songs which are harmonica instrumentals. Well, they're instrumentals, not just harmonica instrumentals. And then you've got the other part of the EP, which is the Deliberations one, the one we mentioned earlier on with the vocals in Hebrew. So yeah, this was released in 2022, so pretty recent.

SPEAKER_01: 32:22

I actually worked on this album as one piece, Endless Deliberations, and it was a period in my life that I just had many, many contemplations, musically and personally, and I... contemplated so much about how to release this music and I recorded some of the songs a few times and it was not pleasant it takes a lot of energy to contemplate and this is how I decided to call it Endless Deliberations I was thinking also about contemplations but I decided that deliberations deliberations is more of like a discussion between people, right? and I eventually decided to split it in two, Endless, which is instrumental, and then the last song, the fifth song in this EP is called The End, and I am not playing harmonica on it, I play piano, and some vocals, and guitars there, and there's another vocalist. And then the second half of it, the liberations, is five songs in Hebrew that I sing and play piano in most of them, not all of them. Some of them are with the quartet, and then the rest is me playing piano.

SPEAKER_00: 33:56

Yeah, great. And so you released a song, another one is a single, called Sattler.

UNKNOWN: 34:06

Sattler

SPEAKER_01: 34:18

Well, Satla is a part of Endless, the instrumental EP.

SPEAKER_00: 34:24

And then there's a song called Forza Roma, which is a Latin-Italian influence.

SPEAKER_01: 34:29

Yeah, there's definitely some Latin influences on this one. And I wrote this one after we were in Rome. We were we were playing some gigs in Italy and we were in Rome Also alone again along the bass player. We were staying at our friend's place and Francesco drummer and Rome the team the the football team won against Barcelona so people were partying in the streets, very hard, and everybody was screaming, Forza Roma, Forza Roma, it means the power to roam. And then, yeah, I was inspired by this that night and wrote this song called Forza Roma.

UNKNOWN: 35:24

Forza Roma

SPEAKER_00: 35:36

And now you've got a new album coming out soon, and you've kindly let us have a sneak preview and provided some, I think, not final cuts yet, so a couple of clips I'll play, the clips I'll use on here, not quite the master cuts yet, but yeah, it'd be good to hear some of those. Yeah, so when's this one coming out, and tell us about this one.

SPEAKER_01: 35:57

Right now, I'm calling it trying. It might change. But right now I'm calling it Trying, and it's an album that, like I mentioned before, also René, my manager with whom I work in Europe, he encouraged me to write this album. And he booked a short tour for us in Europe and two days of recording to record the music. And it's kind of the first time that I... didn't have the music ready when I already had the dates for the recording. So we had the dates and I had to write a bunch of new music. So I wrote quite a few new songs for this album. There are also a couple older songs on it like some stuff that i wrote in the past that i never recorded and decided to include in this album and also for the first time we are playing on this album songs that that are not my compositions one of them is called merengue by gabriel the piano player Merengue, also I mentioned it before, is a rhythm from Venezuela in 5-8. And this song is in this rhythm, Merengue, Venezuelano. And another composition of an incredible Argentinian composer called Carlos Aguirre. And the song, the composition of his that we recorded is called Milonga Gris. And the rest are my compositions.

SPEAKER_00: 37:55

Great stuff. Yeah. And yeah, there's some good ones. Triangulation. I enjoyed that one. I noticed Kafka, who was a Czech writer, isn't he? So I was hearing some similarities to Bluzet, the melody on Kafka. Have I picked that out right? I

SPEAKER_01: 38:28

never thought about it. Kafka is mainly based on this bass line that I wrote. This is, for example, one of my oldest songs that I decided to include in this album.

SPEAKER_00: 38:45

Yeah, no, great. So yeah, when's this one coming out?

SPEAKER_01: 39:00

This one is planned to come out in the beginning of 25. So in like, somewhere between January and March of 2025.

SPEAKER_00: 39:11

Okay, right, so yeah, you've still got some work to do. Are you still recording it, or is it just all the mixing?

SPEAKER_01: 39:16

There's still, we're going to have a special guest on one of the songs, Lars Danielsson, he's a bass player and composer and incredible, incredible musician, that is going to record on one of the songs, Ballad for Daniel, and there's one song called on which we have a singer singing Essi Kwanzaa. The song is called Trying, which I'm actually still contemplating if to include in this album or not. And that's it pretty much, yeah. Most of it is ready, I would say, like 90%.

SPEAKER_00: 39:57

well yeah it sounded great so yeah let's get some yeah a sneak preview on here but yeah enjoy the looking forward to that one coming out i noticed also um you know talking about you playing a little bit of diatonic so i've picked one song out of you playing uh diatonic it's on the loose pace that that's the one that was the three you had to record for the videos right so um but it does demonstrate you're playing some some diatonic on monica so The song's called Can Try. So is that you trying some diatonic harmonica?

SPEAKER_01: 40:35

Exactly. This is exactly what it is. Because I wouldn't call myself, you know, I know some great diatonic harmonica players that can really play this instrument and make it sound good. And I wouldn't consider myself one of them. But I had to... to do it, and so I gave it a try.

SPEAKER_00: 40:57

So when you're doing the albums and you're composing them, are you improvising on most of it, or are you writing out most of your own parts, what you're going to play, how do you approach playing them on the chromatic?

SPEAKER_01: 41:08

Most of them have a solo, so my compositions are, there's a form and there's obviously a lot of written material, and usually there's a part for a solo. Yeah, usually it's a part of the song. There's the song, we play the melody, and then what I like, some songs have just one solo part on which everybody or whoever is soloing is soloing over this part, but... Most of my songs have different parts for soloing. So maybe the piano will improvise over the A section, and then there will be a harmonica solo over the B section, and then those solos are improvised. Yeah, it's just... a

SPEAKER_00: 41:57

solo. So you're composing the chord structure and the melodies and then improvising the solos.

SPEAKER_01: 42:02

Exactly, yeah. There's a structure, there's chords, there's a rhythm, and this is what we improvise over and try to mess it up a little bit. And

SPEAKER_00: 42:14

I've seen you play at various festivals and you played in some great places. You played in Carnegie Hall.

UNKNOWN: 42:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 42:32

So tell us about that.

SPEAKER_01: 42:33

Yeah, I got to play a couple of my songs once at Carnegie Hall. It was a concert and we were invited to play a couple of my compositions there. That was very exciting. Yeah, we got to play with my band at Carnegie. at Jazz at Lincoln Center once, at some festival that was happening there. I got to play at the Blue Note with Edmar Castaneda, which is... Nice. I was actually playing with this band, subbing for Gregoire, and then I got to play a few more concerts with Edmar Castaneda, which was incredible.

SPEAKER_00: 43:21

Yeah, and you've won a first prize in the Rostov International Jazz Competition. So I understand this was in Russia. So what was that like visiting Russia?

SPEAKER_01: 43:30

Yeah, that was a long time ago. It's like some small competition that was happening there. Somehow there was a connection between this competition. It was a school, a music school there, and the school where I was studying in Israel. And so... They sent a few students to participate in this competition and then I won. That was, I would say, 12 years ago, something like that.

SPEAKER_00: 44:00

A question I ask each time, your time, is if you had 10 minutes of practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

SPEAKER_01: 44:07

Sound, for sure. Long notes, connecting with the instrument and finding your sound on it. There's a tendency with the harmonica, because it seems so easy to produce the note, the sound, you just blow, you know, every kid could do it. People that play this instrument forget about the depth of the sound, actually, and how unique it can be. like each person's sound on the instrument is unique. Yeah, for sure, if I have 10 minutes, I would turn off my phone and practice this.

SPEAKER_00: 44:49

What does your typical practice regime look like? Do you do lots of scales? What sort of things do you concentrate on?

SPEAKER_01: 44:59

I'm studying music, really, like studying repertoire, I guess, or like... when there's a song that I like or music that I need to learn for a gig, I will learn the music, also try to learn it on the piano first, and then I will learn it on the harmonica. I'll learn the melody and I'll learn the chords, and I will work on... On rhythm, I work on different things. For example, I'm studying on the conga language. I will try to do it on the harmonica. For example, play the clave with one foot and play the harmonica. Really, literally transpose things that the conga would play. onto the harmonica or trans or transcribing solos and analyzing them trying to understand what the player is thinking about harmonically build myself like exercises around this or try to to take one element and incorporate it into my solos yeah there's many things that that I do. Now, in terms of routine, this is a little hard for me to have a routine these days because I'm busy also playing gigs and working on my music and teaching a lot, but I'm still trying to practice daily. And I would practice sound and really this, yeah, like practicing for gigs and using... the music that I need to learn for gigs in order to practice the things that I'm trying to improve.

SPEAKER_00: 46:53

And you talked about transcribing, are there particular instruments, obviously you mentioned the conga there, are there particular instruments that you think translate well onto the chromatic or do you not try and limit yourself in that way?

SPEAKER_01: 47:07

Every instrument really, like obviously melodic instruments like trumpet and saxophone and Singers also, that's for every instrumentalist, I think is a great exercise or it's more than an exercise to transcribe singers. And then piano, obviously, piano is a little hard because many times there's chords and more than one note that you cannot really do on the harmonica. And then conga is really playing, it has a few notes, but it's mostly its rhythm. So it's great to improve your rhythm and learn a very complex, sophisticated, rhythmic language on the harmonica.

SPEAKER_00: 48:18

So let's get on now talking about gear. So first of all, what chromatic do you like to play? I

SPEAKER_01: 48:24

play the Suzuki Sirius 56. It's the one that goes down to the G below middle C.

SPEAKER_00: 48:32

So a 14-hole? Yes, exactly. And did you play the 14-hole from the beginning or did you switch to that at some point?

SPEAKER_01: 48:40

Yeah, no, I switched to that probably around four years ago maybe. For a while I wanted to try it. So with the harmonica, there's a thing with the lower octave. I don't really like the sound of the lower notes. It's hard to control them. But I always, I was missing trumpet and flute also goes lower than middle C, but mostly the trumpet goes down to G or even F sharp in concert. And like there's melodies and solos that I was transcribing that I was missing constantly. this low g and so i wanted to try it for a while and then i was on the train and i forgot my bag on the train with two harmonicas and then i had to buy some new harmonicas i was like okay let's Let's try the 14-hole. I used to play, when I was younger, I used to play also the 16-holes, the 100, the 64. But like I said, the lower notes are not my favorite, but I was missing the G. And the Sirius is amazing, I love it. It's pretty sturdy, and the lower notes sound pretty good.

SPEAKER_00: 50:03

How's the transition to that 14-hole beaning? You know, we're not having the C at the bottom root note. How have you found that?

SPEAKER_01: 50:11

Yeah, it's confusing a little bit in the beginning. Even still, I would say, sometimes I would go to the wrong note just because my body remembers so much the 12-holes. It's so tiny, but somehow it really messes with your brain, you know?

SPEAKER_00: 50:33

Have you tried the DM-48 or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01: 50:36

Actually, yeah, I know. I have a friend that has it, and I think I tried his once. Yeah, it's something that would be cool to try, actually. I'm not opposing to having this instrument, but I'm not so familiar with it.

SPEAKER_00: 50:50

Definitely worth a try. You know, it's very interesting. Yeah, very interesting. And if nothing else, it allows you to practice silently because, you know, it's completely silent. So you can kind of put headphones on with your phone or whatever and you can just practice it silent, which is good too, yeah. So what about your embouchure when you're playing the chromatic? What do you like to play?

SPEAKER_01: 51:09

I'm just playing like toots, I guess.

SPEAKER_00: 51:13

Puckering, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 51:14

Yeah. No, the tone blocking is so much practice. I'll tell you what, I think you already got the sense that I'm into music, you know, and I like music. And really, somehow the harmonica found me, and this is the instrument that I practice the most. most professional at but I have like for example practicing tongue blocking will require so I tried you know to practice a little bit and it just requires so much time of practicing something that has nothing to do with music you know what I mean

SPEAKER_03: 51:51

yeah

SPEAKER_01: 51:52

it's like just this like very technical thing that I'm I'm just not interested in the funny thing is obviously I'm practicing things on the harmonica that are really hard to to play some songs but there's for me there's like a meaning to it because I'm learning how to play a song and the instrument I'm doing it with is the harmonica so I must overcome some technical obstacles but now to like spend hours on practicing tongue blocking is something that I am not so interested in doing

SPEAKER_00: 52:31

yeah you're not alone with that view that people like yourself you know who are jazz players or you know particularly chromatic players as well you know approach it with the music first rather than thinking you're a harmonica player whereas lots of harmonica players would maybe call themselves a harmonica player before thinking about the music yeah so it's interesting then people like yourself you know you approach it from that different side you know it's quite it does it does definitely put a different perspective on how you approach playing I think and the harmonica and music in general yeah

SPEAKER_01: 53:01

yeah absolutely

SPEAKER_00: 53:03

yeah

SPEAKER_01: 53:03

yeah this is something that i think that the the world of harmonica is is missing a little bit more yeah people who are are great musicians you see in like all the rest of the instruments like saxophone players piano players obviously and like etc they are great musicians and they their main instrument is this instrument but it's not they're they're just instrumentalists you know what i mean

SPEAKER_00: 53:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 53:32

And in the harmonica world is something that is missing. I feel like more great musicians, good musicians that happen to be harmonica players, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00: 53:43

Yeah, no, definitely, definitely. As I say, it's definitely a topic I've touched on before. It's a very interesting one, yeah. So what about amplification? What microphone and amplification do you like to use?

SPEAKER_01: 53:55

Yeah, so for live, I just use the SM58. even though there's there's some other great microphones that I don't really remember their names there's one like a live condenser like Sennheiser I don't remember what's the name of that the specific microphone but that's a great microphone and yeah obviously i have used some other microphones that are great but but i just have a 58 and this is what i'm using

SPEAKER_00: 54:41

yeah and obviously i mean obviously to use that and and uh you know it does you know it works well with the the range of sound of the chromatic yeah

SPEAKER_01: 54:49

yeah and then for recording though i'm using uh other microphones I personally have a TLM-102. That's a Neumann condenser microphone. And I like to combine it with an SM-7B. That's a microphone that's used a lot for podcasts, actually, and singers use it. It's a dynamic microphone to give the harmonica more of a and color and this or the re20 it's called i think the re20 right is similar yeah but if i'm recording at a studio that has all the gears, so I would record, yeah, with like a really good condenser, like a Neumann, and then a ribbon, a good ribbon mic. And also, I'm not like a gear nerd, so I don't remember a lot of the names, but a really good condenser and then a really good ribbon mic. That's like clarity from the condenser and then some darkness from the ribbon.

SPEAKER_00: 56:04

Yeah, very nice, yeah. So yeah, so no, great then. So you've got your album coming out. You're working on that for next year. I saw you had a gig playing at the Ornithology Jazz Club in New York, I think just last weekend. So you're still playing around New York. People can check you out there. Did you say you have plans to get across to Europe in the near future to play again?

SPEAKER_01: 56:26

Yes, probably in October. October I might be there. And then hopefully, if everything works as planned, we will be touring the new album in the spring of 25, like April and on in the summer.

SPEAKER_00: 56:45

Excellent. And yeah, it was great to, you know, discover your music. Your time really enjoyed it and some great fresh new approach. So how old are you at the moment?

SPEAKER_01: 56:54

I'm 30.

SPEAKER_00: 56:55

You're 30. Yeah. So still plenty to come from you then. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. Looking forward to your output over many years. Thanks for joining me today. Your time at Banor.

SPEAKER_01: 57:03

Thank you so much, Neil. It was, it was,

SPEAKER_00: 57:06

yeah, it

SPEAKER_01: 57:06

was really fun talking with you.

SPEAKER_00: 57:09

Once again, thanks to Zydle for sponsoring the podcast. Be sure to check out their great range of harmonicas and products at www.zydle1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zydle Harmonicas. Thanks to your time for joining me today. He's certainly part of the new generation of chromatic players, really moving the instrument forward and bringing a fresh approach and demonstrating the versatility of the chromatic harmonica. Be sure to check him out live if you can. And thanks to you all for listening again. Remember, you can get in touch via the contacts page on the website or at monicahappyhour.com, including if you have any suggestions for future guests you would like to be interviewed. The next episode should be out in three weeks, as I'll be away a little over Easter. I'll sign out now with a song from your town's endless EP, Perfect Contrasts.

UNKNOWN: 58:15

Bye.