Issi Rozen

Created and raised in Israel however now surviving in the Boston suburbs, Issi Rozen can be an expressive, soulful post-bop guitarist whose affects range between Jim Hall, Pat Metheny, and Joe Move to Middle Eastern music. The airy design of electric guitar playing that Hall and Metheny (who was simply greatly inspired by Hall but became quite distinct himself) are recognized for provides clearly had a significant effect on Rozen’s playing — like Hall and Metheny, Rozen isn’t the type of guitarist who is out of his method to cram as much notes as it can be into his solos. And likewise to impacting Rozen’s design of playing, Hall and Metheny possess affected him compositionally. But a very important factor that separates Rozen from those two affects is the reality that his playing and composing tend to be more Middle Eastern-influenced. Developing up in Israel, Rozen was encircled by Middle Eastern modal music — both Jewish and Arabic — and he also includes some common Jewish music in his repertoire and interprets them in a post-bop style. In a variety of interviews, Rozen provides remarked that jazz and Middle Eastern music are both known for improvisation. Rozen, who was simply blessed in Haifa, Israel, on Apr 20, 1967, and eventually resided in Tel Aviv, was raised hearing a number of music — not merely jazz and Middle Eastern music, but also blues and rock and roll. Rozen enjoyed the Beatles, Green Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton when he was developing up, and his launch to jazz electric guitar was Joe Move; he later experienced Hall, Metheny, and Wes Montgomery. Rozen’s understanding of jazz appeared to become also more powerful when, as a adult, he spent 3 years in the Israeli armed forces — in Israel, armed forces service is necessary for adults — and after his tour of responsibility, he examined jazz improvisation on the Rimon College of Jazz and Modern Music in Tel Aviv. For a long period, Rozen played rock and roll and blues — he led his very own rock-band in senior high school — but ultimately he made a decision to play jazz solely (although he under no circumstances became a jazz snob and held hearing different varieties of music). In 1991, Rozen remaining Israel and shifted to Boston to wait the renowned Berklee University of Music, ultimately settling in the suburb of Brookline, MA. The ’90s discovered the guitarist learning to be a fixture for the Boston jazz picture, and in 1998, his 1st album like a innovator, Red Sea, premiered by Brownstone Information (a little independent label that’s located in Worcester, MA, and continues to be quite great about documenting Boston-based jazz performers). In 1999 Rozen documented his second recording, Homeland Blues, for Brownstone — and in 2003 the guitarist offered his third recording, Dark Beauty, which he released by himself label, New Stage Music.