Twelve Noam Lemish

• 1Song for Lia08:55
• 2The Nagila Mayster14:15
• 3Beethoven's 7th Visit to Romania13:31
• 4Steals on Steeles05:50
• 5Between Utopia and Destruction11:36
• 6Rebirth11:15
• Total Runtime01:05:22

Info for Twelve

Noam Lemish is a Toronto-based pianist-composer whose music often defies categorization. In Twelve he leads a formidable jazz 12tet presenting a captivating set of six original compositions. This chamber-sized jazz orchestra - a nimble, yet powerful ensemble - features a stellar cast that includes many of Canada’s most prominent jazz artists, including multiple JUNO award winners. Growing up “in-between” cultures and places, having lived for extended periods in Israel, the United States and now Canada, Lemish’s music fuses an array of disparate influences and traditions. In Twelve, Lemish and his orchestra distill this integrated, transcultural musical life into a compelling, poignant, and joyful artistic statement. Lemish’s distinct and innovative voice as a composer permeates every facet of this recording. The six pieces that comprise Twelve stretch the conventional boundaries of the jazz idiom in more ways than one. Pushing jazz structures in new directions, the works showcase inventive, long-form, through-composed music that seamlessly integrates soaring melodies, exquisite large ensemble writing and orchestration with stunning improvised solos. Owing to Lemish’s multi-cultural upbringing and life experiences, the compositions also reveal a musical vision that embraces genre-bending as an essential feature. Lemish’s writing effortlessly blends his rootedness in jazz and western art music with the musical influences of his Israeli childhood and Eastern-European Jewish heritage.

"Listening to this extraordinary album – one would be well-advised to do so, repeatedly, as an uninterrupted whole (preferably with a glass of red wine in hand) – Lemish takes us along on his soul-baring, improvisational journey, which is nothing short of stunning (and which may even feel a touch voyeuristic for the listener, given the deeply felt depths that he plumbs). Infused with elements of jazz, classical and Middle Eastern music, Jewish folk and Israeli popular song, Lemish’s extemporizations are at times poignant, propulsive, yearning, melancholic, contemplative and quixotic. And they are masterful." (Sharna Searle, The WholeNote)

Noam Lemish, piano
Terry Promane, musical director
Kevin Turcotte, trumpet & flugelhorn
Jim Lewis, trumpet & flugelhorn
Allison Au, alto saxophone
Mike Murley, tenor saxophone & soprano saxophone (tracks 2, 3)
Kelly Jefferson, tenor saxophone & soprano saxophone (track 5)
William Carn, trombone
Karl Silveira, trombone
Laura Swankey, vocals (tracks 1, 2)
Ted Quinlan, guitar
Michael Davidson, vibraphone (tracks 2, 3, 4, 6)
Justin Gray, double bass
Derek Gray, drums & percussion
Choir (track 3)

Noam Lemish
has never felt inclined to pick a lane. Maybe his hyphenated identity as an Israeli-American-Canadian has helped inspire his multiplicity and general disinclination to follow stylistic guidelines. Whatever the reason, over the course of two decades of intensive musical study and creation he’s always sought to expand the scope of his exploration, often blurring or ignoring deeply etched boundaries between genres, peoples, and traditions. He’s a jazz artist and a classical composer of chamber works, an improviser and an accompanist, an intrepid cross-cultural investigator and an interpreter of contemporary composition. He contains multitudes.

Based for the past decade in Toronto, Lemish is best known for leading or co-leading several celebrated ensembles. The critically hailed 2018 album Pardes features the quartet he co-leads with Israeli guitarist and oud expert Amos Hoffman. As director of the Israeli-Iranian Musical Initiative (I=I), a multiple grant-winning collective of Israeli and Iranian performers, Lemish has brought Israeli and Iranian musicians and audiences together, in dialogue and celebration, challenging the formal political hostilities between

Iran and Israel through critically acclaimed and sold-out concerts at major venues and festivals.

He's forged a deep creative bond with pianist/composer W.A. Mathieu, with whom he studied formally for nearly a decade. They captured the evolving relationship on the albums The Magic Clavier Book I (2015) and The Magic Clavier Book II (2018), showcasing compositions written by Mathieu especially for Lemish. He continues to perform and record with veteran drummer/composer George Marsh. Their recordings together include 2016’s The Turning with bassist Jim Kerwin, and the duo sessions Nightfall (2013) and Yes And (2008), an impressive debut recording focusing on Lemish’s original compositions.

Booklet for Twelve