Kobi Salomon Quartet | Tribute to Benny Goodman
The Kobi Salomon Quartet will host you for an evening of summery swing in the Dixieland country of New Orleans. The show, a tribute to the clarinet legend, “the King of Swing”, Benny Goodman, is a love song for the free spirit represented by the rhythmic hot jazz of the early 20th century. Wild improvisations and at the same time polished musicianship and formidable command of the instrument, dictated and today still set the tone. Salomon, a virtuoso clarinet player, and the excellent ensemble that has been accompanying him for years, keep the swing fire going and bring back to the stage the sheer joy of playing pure jazz.
Benny Goodman’s influence on jazz music, as a conductor of ensembles and orchestras, as a player and as a composer, remains strong and clear to this today. Its ripple effect is evident in the technique and style adopted by generations of jazz musicians after him but not only. Goodman, the most popular figure in the history of jazz – the Beatles of the genre – has proven that good, pure, uncompromising music will find its way to the general public. He was the one who first brought jazz to Carnegie Hall and charmed millions of people with “Sweet Georgia Brown” at the Savoy Hotel in New York. Goodman was also the first musician to insist on combining white and African American musicians on stage alongside him at a time when the laws of racial segregation in public spaces were still in force. “It takes both the black and white keys, to make perfect harmony,” he said. The orchestra he founded was an incubator for generations of legends in the field of jazz and thus, for a brief moment in history, he made jazz a synonym for popular music with his own hand.
The Kobi Salomon Quartet maintains the guidelines laid down by Goodman, a combination of strict discipline, precision, and a polished, elegant performance combined at the same time with the freedom to improvise, spread wings and soar as high and as far as you can. Contagious rhythms, attentive and rolling dialogue between the instruments and a lot of good vibes, this is the secret of the magic they bring to the stage. An evening of live and breathing music, diving into the origins of jazz and the American songbook.