Vocalist, songwriter and actress Tali Atzmon was Israeli born but is now London based. Tali is the wife of multi-instrumentalist, composer, band-leader author and political activist Gilad Atzmon, a well-known and (mostly!) well-loved figure on the UK music scene.

She studied acting and the performing arts in Israel, featuring in four films and on the stage and TV; she has since gone on to become a talented independent documentary film maker.

Tali has provided backing vocals on a number of Gilad’s many album releases but Talinka represents her first musical project as a leader. The programme consists of seven or eight original compositions written by members of the group plus arrangements of Coltrane’s Invitation by the Polish film composer Bronislau Kaper and the jazz standards Don’t Explain and You Don’t Know What Love Is.

Tali explains her song; Losing Vision thus: I wrote the song in response to the Syrian refugee crisis. Not surprisingly the mood is sombre, with deep, resinous bass clarinet combining with melancholy bowed Viola da Gamba while Yaron’s bass acts as the song’s anchor. Tali’s deep, grave, evocative vocal, expresses both the suffering and the inherent dignity of the refugees while subtly alluding to the song People Who Need People as she sings the lines “people dream of leaving” and “people dream of loving”. But despite all of the song’s sadness the ultimate message is still one of hope.

Alongside Tali’s vocals the band features Gilad on bass clarinet, soprano sax and accordion and Yaron Stavi on double bass, the latter a long term associate of Gilad’s and a member of Gilad’s regular working band the Orient House Ensemble. The inclusion of Gilad and Yaron may be fairly predictable but Tali’s other choice to complete the Talinka line up is less so.

Jenny Bliss is a musician more closely associated with baroque music. A specialist on the ‘Viola da Gamba’ she also contributes baroque violin, flute and backing vocals. The Viola de Gamba is a six stringed, fretted instrument, somewhere in size between a regular viola and a cello. It can be either bowed or plucked and strummed like a guitar. Jenny moves freely between both techniques and thus fulfils a rhythmic as well as a melodic role in the creation of the music. Her inclusion helps to ensure that Talinka has a distinct and unusual group sound.

Talinka touches many bases with its wide ranging and evocative arrangements and the standard of the musicianship is excellent, as one would expect from players of this calibre, the outcome is a highly distinctive acoustic sound.

www.talinka.live

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With thanks to Ian Mann (the Jazz Mann) for some of the words above, taken from his album review of Talinka