DON'T TRY TO define Israeli jazz based on the four artists appearing in the World Cafe Live Israeli Jazz Festival. You'd only end up confused - though you wouldn't necessarily be wrong.
Guitarist Roni Ben-Hur has an easy swing reminiscent of Grant Green, equally at home in soulful blues as in Sephardic folk melodies; the young tenor saxophonist Eli Degibri applies his supple tone with equal grace to hard bop and ballads; pianist Alon Yavnai combines his conservatory training with Afro-Cuban rhythms picked up during his six-year stint with Cuban reed player Paquito D'Rivera; and the brother-and-sister team of trumpeter Avishai and saxophonist/clarinetist Anat Cohen are, between the two of them, a virtual musical map of the world.
That diversity, according to Yavnai, is inherent not only in his heritage but in his chosen music.
"Israel is comprised of many cultures as it is," he explained. "And if you just try to define jazz, that's a hell of a mission. So Israeli artists playing jazz music combine a lot of influences. But I'll tell you one thing: I'm pretty positive that there will be some common ground in the music of all of these artists where you could recognize them as people from Israel."
The 2008 Israeli Jazz Festival, co-sponsored by the Consulate General of Philadelphia and Jacobs Music, is the kickoff for a yearlong series of events commemorating the 60th anniversary of the formation of the state of Israel.
"A great number of Israelis, especially young Israelis, have been dealing with jazz in the last 10 or 15 years, many of them with great success," said Leo Vinovezky, Philly's Israeli consul. "They are trying to send a message about how Israel is very involved all over the world in terms of culture and art. It's a great opportunity for us to celebrate our sixtieth anniversary with a very American subject like jazz."
The festival is part of a series called "The Other Side of Israel," which hopes to spotlight the nation's cultural aspects, too often overshadowed by political upheaval. For Vinovezky, those aspects are vitally important to the country's future.
"I'm convinced that one day we'll have peace with our neighbors," Vinovezky said, "and we need to prepare people for that day. The best way to do so is through arts and culture. It's like a bridge between peoples, between cultures. Israel is a multicultural country - a small country, that's true, but a very complex country. You'll find people talking more than 100 languages. It's like a mosaic with a thousand pieces."
That mosaic is such an enshrined part of Israeli culture that Cohen sees no qualms at being defined as an Israeli jazz musician, despite the fact that her music encompasses aspects of American swing, Brazilian choro, Argentinian tango, samba, Afro-Cuban rhythms and European classical traditions.
"We're a young country of immigrants," the saxophonist/clarinetist said, "and the music of Israel is a combination of all of the sounds of the Middle East and of all the immigrants that came there. So I grew up hearing lots of Brazilian music, Venezuelan rhythms, all those rhythms that I didn't realize were from somewhere else; for me they were Israeli. But music is music."
Despite her wide range of influences, one style that Cohen never really studied is klezmer, the traditional Jewish folk music. That's especially ironic given the fact that she has recently been focusing more on her original instrument, clarinet, which figures far more heavily in klezmer than in jazz.
Cohen had been concentrating more on saxophone since emigrating to the States, but she rediscovered the clarinet when she began incorporating choro into her compositions. Still, people constantly say that they hear the klezmer influence in Cohen's music, which she doesn't deny.
"Certain elements of the tradition of klezmer comes natural to me," she said. "The gypsy part, the wanderer, the crying, the from-the-heart part, simple minor melodies. If people associate that with klezmer, fine; it's not intentional, but I guess it's there inside me."
Vinovezky echoes that point, saying that all of the musicians playing in the festival carry a trace of their homeland in their music, whether intended or not.
"Once you're born and you grow up in a specific country, you are part of that country," he said. "You're bringing your sounds, your childhood, your landscapes, your experiences to your music. We're talking about our history, our life, our pains, our joy - it's a special country."
Yavnai illustrated the way in which Israel absorbs other cultures by pointing to the late Stu Hacohen, a little-known Bulgarian multi-instrumentalist who came to Israel in the 1940s.
"He played in Israel for 50 years," Yavnai said, and "created one of the most important bands there, played Charlie Parker music with the flavor of his Bulgarian and gypsy influences. For me, jazz is more a spirit - the spirit of improvisation, of spontaneity, and of wit that you put into the music."
Cohen echoed that sentiment and offered that the very fact of the indefinability of jazz - and of Israel - is a powerful message to offer during this celebration.
"Music comes from inside of you," she said, "and if you listen carefully to what's inside of you and believe in what you do, then people will hear that you're saying something. They'll want to listen because they'll know you're sincere.
"Sometimes I feel the word 'jazz' pushes people away from music, and my idea is to say that jazz is a way of being, a way of living. It's an openness to others. If everybody would relate to each other as people in the way that we relate to each other as musicians, we would live in a better place." *
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World Cafe Live, 3025 Walnut St., 7:30 p.m. Monday through Jan. 24, $15 per show, 215-222-1400, www.worldcafelive.com.