Eyal Lovett - Biography
The melody is Eyal Lovett's artform, the tune that makes you think. He produces them with impressive delicacy. Somewhere inbetween and away from his great influencers Bach and Chopin, Barenboim and Rubinstein, Bill Evans, Brad Mehldau and Miles Davis. "I want to emotionally connect, that's the only thing I ask of music", says Lovett. Depth is the word you'll remember most after talking to the young Israeli, who found his career in Berlin - pianist, composer, arranger, band leader and manager.
Lovett started classical training in Israel at the age of ten. Coming from a musical family, the piano was always there. At 16 he took up bass lessons, learning about Pop, Rock and Jazz. The latter brought him back to the keys, and closer to the idea of becoming a professional musician. Lovett won scholarships in Israel and abroad. He studied classical music and Jazz at The New School in Tel Aviv and in New York. "I studied with Amit Golan, with Rachel Feinstein and Sarah Tal, with Omri Mor. It was a very good time to study music in Israel then. There were great teachers!”
After one year of a two year course in New York life brought Lovett to Berlin. And everything fell into place. "I was ready for the city, and the city was ready for me.” In 2013 Lovett founded the Eyal Lovett Trio with Aidan Lowe (drums) and Kenneth Dahl Knudsen (bass). "I had strong connections with other musicians in my life, but between the three of us, there was an instant chemistry.”
One year later he self-published the Trio's first album, "Let Go” putting "all the contradictive emotions” that rage inside of him, in one spot. With jazz and classic, Israeli tunes and Yiddish folklore. The Trio toured in Europe and Israel. They played, they worked, and two years later Lovett started putting together the next album, "Tales from a Forbidden Land” featuring the guitarist Gilad Hekselman. The double CD was published in 2016 and brought more depth and feelings. The personal becoming universal. The "Forbidden Land" could be everywhere, says Lovett, and expresses it on his second album in even more achingly beautiful melodies.
At the end of 2016 he worked on a side project called “Aliyah” with the singer Eden Halon. The album will be published in 2017, and is a leap into world music by sounding different aspects of Jewish traditions.
"You need to follow certain rules to keep it Jazz" Lovett says. “But you can get out of these rules to make music. I don't mind being in or out of these rules as long as it's good music." Herein lies the answer why he chose Jazz after all. Because of its’ depth, but also because of its openess, “Jazz combines everything inside. You can do anything from completely free intuition to a Rachmaninoff concerto. It's all about the now."