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Dida Pelled

Brooklyn-based, Native Tel-Avivian, Dida Pelled, is widely regarded as the greatest jazz guitarist this side of the Mississippi. Love of the Tiger, Pelled’s upcoming album, is the product of a jazz prodigy gone rogue. It is a love letter to the obscure, weaving across genres, twisting and turning with Pelled’s ever-expanding range of musical abilities and interests.

Pelled’s ambitions took shape as a child, when, entranced by bebop, she sequestered herself from the world and resolved to master guitar, later earning a spot in the Israeli Army band before training at the New School on a scholarship to study jazz. She quickly made a name for herself in the New York jazz scene, recording with Jazz masters like Roy Hargrove and Gregory Hutchinson and touring the world. As her jazz star rose, Pelled felt a pull toward classic American songwriting, shifting her direction and redefining her voice.

By following her intuition and veering off the jazz trajectory, Pelled took a bold and fearless jump into the unknown. In this period of searching, she became intrigued by the sounds of “lost women”, female artists before her whose stars burned briefly or only in the dark, artists like Connie Converse and Mistress Mary. She made an entire show covering eclectic songs rarely ever heard, a show that developed a cult following of its own.

The songs on Love of the Tiger, are freaky reimaginations of old torch songs. Pelled writes about obsession and salvation, fleeting love, about smoke and mirrors, madness and conformity. On “Sylvia (lost her sense of being a woman)”, Pelled writes the story of a woman losing touch with her femininity as she ages, and finding freedom and power in the unknown. “Melody,” Pelled’s “make out song”, drips down your spine with a jazz-infused, r&b sound, aglow with the thrill of a big love. “Love of the Tiger,” is her own version of a Thai blues song, inspired by Pelled’s roots: she’s Thai, Iraqi, and Israeli. It’s cryptic, full of doors that lead to strange places. “My dog is not really barking,” sings Pelled, her vocals compressed as bass and percussion snake around her, “My door is not really open.” The song is bursting in color, surprising and captivating, like seeing the world through prismatic glasses. Yammi Wisler co-wrote the songs on the record, Pelled also plays with him in an Israeli jug band called Ragtime Vampires.

The final recording of Love of the Tiger, was the culmination of countless false starts. Pelled spent years working with established producers in New York, Berlin, Switzerland and Tel Aviv, testing out various channels, worlds where the songs could reside. She experimented with production approaches, sparing no effort and going to extremes to find the right fit. As a jazz musician who shines in spontaneous situations where improvisation and mistakes are celebrated, she found herself a square peg in the round hole of conventional studio production. It was confining to imagine reigning in her sound, committing it to one polished version, finding a suitable palette that could wind all these genres together. Just as she was feeling the urge to kill her darlings and send the songs back into the obscurity from which they were inspired, the pandemic hit, universally transforming all sense of time, work, and purpose.

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Liner Notes

Dida Pelled: A Missing Shade Of Blue

Read "Dida Pelled: A Missing Shade Of Blue" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


In a way, A Missing Shade Of Blue is a throwback to an earlier era, when Grant Green, “Brother" Jack McDuff, Wes Montgomery and Jimmy Smith, and numerous others were bringing the guitar and organ together to create beautiful music for the people. Yet this record doesn't necessarily fit with the work of those artists. Why, you ask? Well, for one, we live in a different time. But the era isn't necessarily the crux of the matter. The scope of ...

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Bailey's Bundles

July 2022: Love Of The Tiger

Read "July 2022: Love Of The Tiger" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Dida Pelled Love Of The Tiger Self Produced 2022 Jazz singing is seeing an uptick of artists stepping out of their “traditional" roles into dramatically different vocal genres altogether. Mainstream-to-progressive Kristina Koller, who debuted in 2017 with the youthful and forward-thinking Perception (Self Produced) followed that effort with the hard-left turn of Stronger (Self Produced, 2019), on which Koller seizes the feet of the musical arts, shaking the change from its pockets. Now, we ...

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Radio & Podcasts

Dida's Touch: The Remarkable Artistry of Dida Pelled

Read "Dida's Touch: The Remarkable Artistry of Dida Pelled" reviewed by Ludovico Granvassu


Whatever material she touches --be it a Horace Silver standard, a Wes Montgomery blues, a Johnny Cash country tune, a Randy Newman heartbreak song, or one of her disarming originals --New York-based Israeli guitarist and vocalist Dida Pelled leaves her indelible mark on it. Her signature style is a mix of playful warmth and remarkable guitar chops approached with the soul of a natural born storyteller that knows how to make the listener... listen to her! ...

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Album Review

Dida Pelled: A Missing Shade of Blue

Read "A Missing Shade of Blue" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Guitarist and vocalist Dida Pelled previous Red Records release, Dida Pelled: Plays and Sings (Red Records, 2011) was one of my pics for Best-of-the-Year in 2011). That recording was so refreshingly organic that it has remained in my listening rotation since that time. Pelled snuck in a self-produced Modern Love Songs (2015) between Plays and Sings and the present A Missing Shade of Blue. It is as exceptional as the first recording. That said, expectations for A Missing Shade of ...

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Interview

Dida Pelled: Telling Stories And Serving Songs

Read "Dida Pelled: Telling Stories And Serving Songs" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


When it comes to music, Dida Pelled doesn't discriminate. This young guitarist-vocalist--a doe-eyed ingénue in appearance, a mature artist in reality--has proven to be an inimitable double-threat who's more concerned with serving a song and doing justice to the music than fitting into a neat little stylistic box. She's equally comfortable playing straight-up jazz at Smalls in Greenwich Village, interpreting pop, jazz, and/or country classics at intimate Manhattan spots like Lelabar or Antibes Bistro, writing her own tuneful material, or ...

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Live Review

Dida Pelled Trio: Aquebogue, NY, February 12, 2012

Read "Dida Pelled Trio: Aquebogue, NY, February 12, 2012" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


Dida Pelled TrioLong Island WinterfestPalmer VineyardsAquebogue, NYFebruary 12, 2012Long Island's East End is world renowned for it's wine country and high-end lifestyle, but few visitors ever choose to experience either one during the winter. While the wine cognoscenti have come throughout the year, the general public usually waited for the warmer weather to trek out to the vineyards--but that began to change several years ago. The Long Island Winterfest came into existence as ...

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Album Review

Dida Pelled: Plays And Sings

Read "Plays And Sings" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


While no “one size fits all" prescription exists for molding and educating unique artists, some schools seem to have an exceptional track record. A large segment of the who's who of jazz greats from Detroit went through Cass Technical High School and more than a few Texas jazz titans received their education at Booker T. Washington High School For The Performing And Visual Arts. Another, less likely source--The Thelma Yellin High School Of The Arts in Tel Aviv, Israel--wasn't really ...

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"Pelled's warm voice possesses an emotive quality that's simultaneously soothing and intoxicating, and her guitar playing, which is built on her round sound, strong comping skills and soulful single note solo lines, places her in a category all her own".

"Dida Pelled sings and plays with equal skill, and her one of kind sound - steeped in tradition while residing deep in a dream - mark her as an artist deserving greater attention". (All About Jazz)

"With 10 fingers that are wise beyond their 21 years, Pelled is the jazzbo guitar slinger that Emily Remler should have been."

"Rounding things out with a pomo Betty Boop voice that easily matches her cutie pie face, she is a jazz promoters dream. A red ribbon package throughout, Pelled is one of the brightest new stars on the jazz horizon. Hot stuff." (Midwest Record)

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