Jerusalem Post - Beam Me Up

There are dozens, actually it seems like hundreds, of bright, talented Israeli jazz musicians doing the country proud out there in the big wide world. New York is, of course, the epicenter of the global jazz scene and, as such, attracts the greatest number of our talented boys and girls.

But there are a few who prefer to peddle their polished wares in other domains. Saxophonist Shauli Einav did his stateside time, completing a master’s degree at the University of Rochester in Upstate New York, followed by a five-year stint in New York City itself. It was a formative period for the now 34-year-old saxophonist.

“Naama is an opera singer and there’s a lot more opera in Europe,” explains Einav. “And I also connected with a French record label at the time.” The couple duly upped stakes and moved to Paris.

Einav is currently back in Israel to visit family and friends, to give some master classes and also to officially launch his latest CD, Beam Me Up, out on German label Berthold Records. The new offering, Einav’s fourth release, will be unveiled at a gig at Jerusalem’s cozy HaMazkeka venue on Tuesday (9:30 p.m.).

For anyone who caught the original popular sci-fi Star Trek television series, or repeats, or YouTube excerpts, the name of the album will instantly ring a bell, as the request made of the Starship Enterprise’s chief engineer Scotty to transport Captain Kirk back to the ship. Einav would like his music to have a similar moving effect, in the galvanizing sense of the term.

“I liked Star Trek as a kid, but it’s not from that,” he explains. “I want my music to infuse people with energy, and to take them to higher places.”

Judging by his output to date, Einav has been following a pretty sharply inclined creative trajectory of his own. He has a robust yet lyrical sound to his horn playing.

Beam Me Up, which includes seven originals plus a hidden bonus track that kicks in around 80 minutes after the last official track, shows that the Parisian resident has taken his writing skills to a new level.

Intriguingly, the entire album is inspired by a work from very different musical climes – the Visions Fugitives series of short piano pieces by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev between 1915 and 1917.

“This album is a sort of commentary on Prokofiev,” says Einav.

“I don’t know if the listener will immediately get that, but every piece I worked on is inspired by a specific piece, or pieces, of Visions Fugitives series.”

The opening track goes by the enigmatic name of “1415” which, as Einav explains, feeds off pieces 14 and 15 of the Prokofiev opus.

“The series is really special for me,” he continues. “You can hear a bit of it and you think it sounds familiar, but it really isn’t. As a jazz musician who is interested in harmony and rhythm it really grabbed me. I don’t know if he was a jazz artist at heart, but he was a real groundbreaker. He could write neoclassical stuff that is sort of reminiscent of Mozart or Haydn, but he would write all sorts of weird harmonies and tempos. He is a composer I really admire.”