The guitar, which has only gained recognition in jazz since the 1940s when it was plugged into an amplifier, seems to be celebrating a kind of comeback. Meanwhile, besides veteran guitarists like Ralph Towner and John Abercrombie, a few young instrumentalists have become a talking point. One of them is Gilad Hekselman. Born in 1984 in Kfar Saba in Israel, Hekselman studied in New York and has been living in the secret jazz capital since 2004. He has played with Mark Turner, Avishai Cohen and Chris Potter, amongst others, and has already been compared with heroes like Pat Metheny and John Scofield. He says, however, he was even more strongly influenced by pianists like Ahmad Jamal, Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett. His style is very clear with very succinct, fantasy-rich, meandering melodies. His trio has a classical touch, which does not exclude an immense richness, creating an experimental space that has a spacey and floating quality. “Homes”, his trio recording from 2015 was critiqued as his most contemplative and tender album: indeed, his reflective withdrawnness seems to enhance Hekselman’s expressive playing all the more, both in his own compositions as also in pieces like Pat Metheny’s “Last Train Home” that references African music. This year, Enjoy Jazz reveres the jazz guitar with a few concerts, and Gilad Hekselmann is one of the big talents that will be shaping this genre in future.
