When the ravages of Alzheimer’s leave an elderly woman marooned in painful memories of October 1950, her grandchild comes up with a creative strategy.
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‘The music of human flesh’
CHRIS SEARLE talks with the Moscow-born Israeli saxophonist Lena Bloch about the release of and inspirations behind her album Rose of Lifta
SUPPORT FOR PALESTINE: Lena Bloch
[www.freshsoundrecords.com]
New releases from Simone White, Brass Funkeys, and Souad Massi
SUE TURNER is compelled by a history that shows how far a country can turn in on itself to collude with abuses of power
RON JACOBS is persuaded by the parallel drawn between Charles Manson and Donald Trump
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MARIA DUARTE defends a solid, late-career Spielberg conspiracy flick that calls for empathy in a hostile world
JAZZ and poetry have always been comrades of culture. Remember Charles Mingus’s collaborations with Langston Hughes, Mike Westbrook’s versions of Blake or Evan Parker’s evocations of William Morris on his solo album Winn’s Win.
But the momentous beauty of tenor saxophonist Lena Bloch’s album Rose of Lifta and its kinship with the Palestinian laureate Mahmoud Darwish creates a sound both unique and an expression of what Darwish called “the music of human flesh.”
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