Labour Day weekend might seem like an unfortunate time for a culture fest but like other long-weekend fêtes, Toronto’s biennial Ashkenaz Festival brings loads of visitors into the city, which helps to counter the exodus of outbound cottagers.
Now in its 8th iteration, Ashkenaz is the largest festival of Jewish culture in Canada and its co-founder, David Buchbinder, left, is back this year to perform with one of his many projects, Odessa/Havana, a jazz ensemble helmed with Cuban/Canadian pianist Hilario Duran. The band, which features some of Toronto’s very best jazz performers (including Rick Lazar, Mark Kelso and Roberto Occhipinti), will preview work from its forthcoming disc.
The melding of traditional Jewish music with Cuban jazz is more natural than the description suggests. While Buchbinder’s music is deeply rooted in Klezmer – he’s a founder of the long-popular Flying Bulgars – he is presently exploring the Sephardic musical traditions of Moorish Spain, which the conquistadors took with them to Cuba and other new world colonies. (The name Ashkenaz refers to a branch of the Jewish family originating in Eastern Europe, as opposed the Sephardic branch prevalent in Spain and the Mediterranean.)
“The idea for Odessa/Havana was not to put restrictions on what we would write,” says Buchbinder. “Hilario (above right) and I immersed ourselves in the each other’s source music to see what came out of it. I was obviously more familiar with Cuban music than he was with Jewish music but he really got it immediately. We talked about the modes and scales and the way the grooves might connect but then we just went off the road, which is the thing I really like about it, that it wasn’t over-determined. We weren’t trying to make a hybrid, we were trying to make something new.”
Buchbinder speculates that Toronto is the perfect locale for this type of cultural cross-pollination. “I’m calling it diasporic genius” he expounds.”I’m starting to recognize that diaspora of all kinds is the engine of human culture. Diaspora is often a negative thing in the sense that people are uprooted from their homelands by famine or war and forced to move to another place. It’s about intense dislocation, whether by choice – migrants looking for a better life – or by circumstance.
“And I feel like Toronto is now in this incredible moment of diasporic genius where people from all over the world and their children are coming together and something new is starting to be born. Odessa/Havana is a perfect example but I’m really excited to see what my daughter’s generation will do. So many children are hybrids of various cultures already and there’s a context here where all this traditional music or music from around the planet becomes a kind of raw material for creating something new.”
Odessa/Havana made its performance debut at the 2008 Ashkenaz Festival and is bringing something new to this year’s event with the addition of vocals courtesy of Egyptian-Canadian singer Maryem Tollar. The addition of voice to the already heady mix is both artistically and commercially motivated: ” It’s way easier to get gigs when you have a singer,” admits Buchbinder. “People respond more easily and naturally to the human voice, even when they don’t understand the language.”
Odessa/Havana performs at Harbourfront’s Brigantine Room (York Quay Centre, 235 Queens Quay West) September 5 at 7 pm ($18 door). Although the festival is centred at Harbourfront, events are scattered at venues throughout the city beginning today thru Monday (visit the website for complete details).
Photo of David Buchbinder by Cylla von Tiedemann, album graphic by José Ortega
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