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Ofri Nehemya

Israeli drummer Ofri Nehemya, plays in and out of the israeli jazz scene for the last 5 years and already had the opportunity to share the stage with many great jazz musicians including Avishai Cohen (bass), Eli Degibri, Aaron Goldberg, Avishai Cohen (trumpet), Reuben Rogers, Gilad Hekselman, Omer Avital and many others.

Ofri was born on January 10th, 1994 in Givatayim, Israel, to a musical family; his father is a drummer and his mother is a singer. Since a very young age, when music was all around, Ofri exposed to different kinds of music including Rock, Pop, Fusion and more. Around the age of 3, he picked up the drumsticks for the first time, playing simple grooves only a few months later. From the age of 8 Ofri was taught by his father for the next 4 years, playing mostly fusion music. In the age of 12, Ofri started taking piano lessons - Classical and jazz, that gave him the basics of harmony and composition. 3 years later, at the age of 15, Ofri started his studies at Thelma-Yellin High school's Jazz department. From that point he was mostly playing jazz music. In high school Ofri started studying arrangment, musicianship and jazz history. At the same time, he was playing in the department's jazz combos and in the high school's big-band. The pick came in the age of 16 when Ofri started playing with some of the leading jazz musicains in Israel as Erez Barnoy, Daniel Zamir, Ofer Ganor, Omri Mor, Amit Friedman, Amos Hoffman and many others. In the age of 17 Ofri met the worldwide known Israeli saxophone player Eli Degibri for the first time, and after a while started to play in his quartet, also sharing the stage with worldwide known jazz musicians as Aaron Goldberg and Reuben Rogers. One year before high school graduation, Ofri got a full scholarship to Berklee's workshop summer program. While taking the short course, he won a Full Ride scholarship for 4 years Studies. In the age of 19, Ofri started playing with the well known Israeli bass player Avishai Cohen, touring with him for 1 year all over the world. Since then, Ofri continues to play a lot in and out of Israel, sharing the stage with great musicians.

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6
Album Review

Omri Mor / Yosef-Gutman Levitt: Melodies of Light

Read "Melodies of Light" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


It is quite rare in a culture and society driven by autocrats, hits, likes, blogs and podcasts, that recordings as ethereal, yet born of the ageless earth, as Melodies of Light come around to release us from the daily ugly. Spontaneous music of this hypnotic, mysterious beauty and elusive grace give us pause to reflect on where we are, individually and collectively, and to seek a better way. It haunts. It comes at the listener from some timeless ...

7
Album Review

Yosef Gutman Levitt: Upside Down Mountain

Read "Upside Down Mountain" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Yosef Gutman Levitt's acoustic bass guitar serves as the lead instrument on this album. The music he plays with his trio here is full of simple melodic beauty and draws from several folk traditions. This work has a sparse, contemplative joy which bears kinship to the recordings of Ralph Towner. Levitt shows an eloquent command of his instrument, running down insistent folkish melodies alongside Omri Mor's sympathetic piano and Ofri Nehemya's basic drum rhythms on “Wedding Song" and ...

14
Album Review

Shai Maestro: Human

Read "Human" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


That pianist Shai Maestro dreams music is an understatement: With an intense romanticist's heart, he also plays in said dream state. And it is re-affirming to know that, after the hellish year the world has been dragged kicking through, that we can all dream too. Human dreams broadly with sunrises, sunsets and all the vulnerability in-between. Amid his steadfast and quick-witted rhythm section-- drummer and fellow Israeli Ofri Nehemya and Peruvian bassist Jorge Roede--Maestro adds the equally impassioned ...

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Album Review

Shai Maestro: Human

Read "Human" reviewed by Chris May


After paying his dues with Avishai Cohen, with whose Trio he recorded four well received albums, pianist Shai Maestro cut loose on his own, debuting with Shai Maestro Trio (Laborie) in 2013. Human is Maestro's sixth own-name album and his second on ECM, followingThe Dream Thief in 2018. The new disc is elegant, expansive, emotionally charged and beautiful. It contains ten Maestro originals and one cover, a playful version Duke Ellington's “In A Sentimental Mood." This time ...

11
Album Review

Omer Avital Qantar: New York Paradox

Read "New York Paradox" reviewed by Edward Blanco


Israeli bassist and composer Omer Avital and his group Qantar, offer their second album, New York Paradox, producing a musical sound in a unique, splashy and audacious style which is quite riveting. The uniqueness here extends to the members of this quintet who have formed a special bond which is quite evident when they are performing. All five players are Israeli-born and live in the Bed-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. For Avital, this is his twentieth-plus recording as leader ...

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Album Review

Omer Avital/Qantar: New York Paradox

Read "New York Paradox" reviewed by Fiona Ord-Shrimpton


The world in its collective viral neurosis is in a cold sweat. What to do? Store shelves are empty, hands have never been cleaner, and if all goes wrong, salaries may soon rise for those who will work. In these trying times, some days you simply must “Avital"—Omer Avital understands this. Thanks to his latest album, New York Paradox , you can, that is you can eavesdrop on the newly broken horizons made through the “rhythmic and harmonic vocabularies underpinning ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Melodies of Light

Soul Song Records
2023

buy

Soul Song (with...

Self Produced
2023

buy

Upside Down Mountain

Self Produced
2022

buy

Until Now

Ubuntu Music
2022

buy

Human

ECM Records
2021

buy

New York Paradox

Jazz&People
2020

buy

It’s The Cops

From: Until Now
By Ofri Nehemya

Videos

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