Sacred Sounds of Sephardi Jazz: Celebrating Itamar Borochov

News

12 February 2021

All-star jazz musician, bandleader, and composer Itamar Borochov has enjoyed a very warm relationship with the American Sephardi Federation ever since he graciously agreed to perform at the ASF’s “Daniel Pearl Concert” in 2014 (memorably ahead of his debut at Dizzy’s Club — Jazz at Lincoln Center). In 2015, Itamar played at the opening of “Sephardic Journeys: An Evening of Exploration”; in 2016 he sat down for an interview with Sephardi Ideas Monthly, while the ASF’s Director of Publications, Dr. Aryeh Tepper, wrote the liner notes to Itamar’s second disk, Boomerang (see below); in 2017, he performed at the ASF’s inaugural American Sephardi Music Festival; then, in 2018, Borochov with Grammy-nominated Innov Gnawa was awarded the ASF’s Pomegranate Award for Musical Conservation, Creativity, and Coexistence at the 21st NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival’s Moroccan Opening Night (video). With all that as background, the ASF was thrilled to learn that Itamar was honored this past week with the prestigious, “LetterOne Rising Stars Jazz Award.” Thrilled, but not surprised, because we’ve known for a while now that Itamar is, as they say, the real deal. And hazaq u’barukh, Alma and Itamar, on your wedding!

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“Immanuel Wilkins and Itamar Borochov Have Won the LetterOne Rising Stars Jazz Award”

By Nate Chinen, WBGO.org

Israel-born, Brooklyn-based jazz trumpeter, bandleader and composer, Itamar Borochov, was recently
honored with the prestigious “LetterOne Rising Stars Jazz Award.” Borochov is a profound artist whose
technical virtuosity is placed in the service of soulful storytelling that celebrates, “the traces of the
Divine that Borochov finds in elegant sophistication, Middle Eastern tradition and downhome blues”
(From the Liner Notes to Borochov’s second disk, Boomerang). In the words of celebrated critic Nate
Chinen, Borochov, “infuses state-of-the-art postbop with melodic elements from his Sephardic heritage.”

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Feature:Borochov Receives the Rising Stars Jazz Award

Dee Dee Bridgewater presents the LetterOne Rising Stars Jazz Award (European Edition) to Itamar Borochov, 6 February 2021 (Screenshot courtesy of *WBGO*/Facebook)

Jump ahead to 38:00 to see jazz vocalist and living-legend, Dee Dee Bridgewater, present the LetterOne Rising Stars Jazz Award (European Edition) to Itamar Borochov. Bridgewater notes how Borochov’s influences include, “Middle Eastern and North African musics heard in his local synagogue,” while his unique approach brings, “the sacred sounds of his upbringing, Sephardic music, to a jazz setting.” After Borochov’s gracious acceptance speech, the ceremony then segues to a live recording of Borochov’s, “Wanderer Song,” a melody that originated among Bukharan Jews, emigrated to become a Hasidic niggun, and then assumed a new form in modern Israel as the popular tune, Mi Yitneni Oph (“If only I could fly”). At the end of the ceremony, Borochov joins Bridgewater, bassist Christian McBride, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, Israeli-American pianist Tamir Hendelman, and saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins (also a prize recipient) for a swinging version of Thelonious Monk’s classic, “Blue Monk.”

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“Revitalizing the Roots: An Interview with Itamar Borochov”

By Sephardi Ideas Monthly

Borochov performing at “Sephardic Journeys: An Evening of Exploration,” celebrating the launch of the eponymous exhibit in The David Berg Rare Book Room, Center or Jewish History, 28 May 2015
(Photo courtesy of Irina Tsukerman)

Sephardi Ideas Monthly’s fascinating February 2016 interview with Itamar Borochov touched on the musical home of Borochov’s youth, his love of the blues, the influence of Israel’s piyyut revival and his love of piyyutim, as well as how all of this connects to Borochov’s artistic career as a jazz musician: “I have great respect and admiration and love for the traditional—traditional culture and music. I always look for the roots. That’s true of everything that I do.”

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“Revitalizing the Roots: Liner Notes to Boomerang”

By Aryeh Tepper, Sephardi Ideas Monthly (Oct., 2016)

Innov Ganawa with Itamar Borochov, Recipients of the ASF Pomegranate Award for Musical Conservation, Creativity, and Coexistence, at the 21st Sephardic-Jewish Film Festival, Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg Great Hall, Center for Jewish History, 6 March 2018. The Pomegranate Award is sculpted by Baghdad-born artist Oded Halahmy (pictured here). (Photo courtesy of
Chrystie Sherman)

As noted by the ASF’s Director of Publications, Dr. Aryeh Tepper, in his 2016 liner notes to Itamar Borochov’s disk, Boomerang, “Jazz from its inception was a musical hybrid, and by integrating Jazz
form and ‘ethnic music’ Borochov is extending the Jazz tradition out of the resources of the tradition
itself.” As Tepper continues, “In 2007, at the age of twenty-three, Borochov relocated to the States with
the intention of immersing himself in the Jazz tradition, but he received a wake-up call one day when
hard-bop icon Nathan Davis told him, “We want you to be you.” That’s when Borochov understood that
there’s no safety net, “I have to be real. If Coltrane was informed by his grandfather being a preacher,
I had to do the same thing. Lee Morgan’s from Philly and I’m from Jaffa. He brought gospel and I’m bringing Sephardi synagogue music.” To be clear, “Sephardi synagogue music” in this context stands
for all of the influences that Borochov absorbed growing up in a Bukharin-Jewish family in an ethnically
diverse town in Israel, synagogue music among them.”