Category: Omer Klein

Omer Klein Trio

I got a lot of feedback on the different channels about my post of the Top 5 Jazz Albums of 2017. Among others from fellow music lover and blogger Melvin.

He recommended Omer Klein´s latest album Sleepwalkers. I must admit I had never heard the name before. Not sure if that’s a good or a bad sign, given how much I care about this kind of music, but probably it just speaks to the fact that we’re truly living in the Golden Age of the Piano Trio with so many fantastic artists out there.

Omer Klein is yet another pianist coming out of Israel, like so many other excellent Jazz musicians (how does such a small country do that?).

Anyhow when I noticed that Klein was scheduled for last Sunday and I happened to be in Switzerland that weekend, I knew what I had to do.

Omer Klein Trio Live At Moods – January 18, 2018

Moods remains my favorite Jazz club in Switzerland. Just the right size, good acoustics, nice drinks, and an excellent program.

So, what did we get?

Let me start by say that what I thought from my original listening to Sleepwalkers confirmed itself. As you know if you read my blog on a regular basis, I’m a sucker for melodies. Omer Klein´s trio is much more focused on rhythms and modal changes than on melodies.

So initially, for the first moments, I was a bit skeptical.

However, I was very quickly won over by the sheer musical power this trio had to offer. The technical abilities of all three musicians, including Haggai Cohen Milo on bass, were just outstanding. Nothing ever seemed complicated to them, they played with so much ease and fun the most complex passages, I was just blown away.

But let’s be clear, this was never technical ability for the sake of it, this was always just driven by the music. All three musicians are clearly passionate about what they are doing, and were visibly having fun during the concert.

In a way, the real driving force behind most songs was the spectacular Amir Bresler on drums. His drive and groove was just fantastics (hence the slightly cheesy title of this blog post borrowed from Austin Powers).

Very interestingly, this trio didn’t follow the typical format of Jazz concerts, where after the intro the musicians get to solo. They played constantly in a very intertwined way (only in the very last song, Bressler got to show off a bit). Songs typically lasted 8-10 minutes and more, and were never boring in any way. Also, there wasn’t´a single standard in the entire concert, only originals.

Overall, an excellent concert. The audience was amazed, and so was I.

If you get a chance to see them live, please do. They are exceptional musicians.

And if they don’t play near you, luckily this concert was recorded and will be put onto the Moods.digital streaming website. This is a subscription well worth having, as you can access all concerts since early 2017 at Moods, recorded in excellent audio and video. I´ll publish a link later when it becomes available.