Noa Fort Brings Her Darkly Expansive, Eclectic Songs to the West Village

by delarue

Pianist/singer Noa Fort– younger sister to respected jazz pianist Anat Fort – is one of New York’s more interesting and original artists. She bridges the gap between art-rock, chamber pop, classical and jazz, singing in both English and Hebrew, reflecting her Israeli-American background. Her moodily modulated alto vocals mirror the diversity of styles in her playing: she can channel torchy cabaret, creepy circus rock or work the corners of a song with a jazz and blues sophistication. She’s playing Caffe Vivaldi on May 26 at 9 PM.

She likes minor keys, slow tempos and takes her time: the videos on her music page often go on for six or seven minutes at a clip. The first tracks are solo or duo performances. There’s Winter Requiem, a slow, brooding art-rock anthem. The second number works around a menacingly carnivalesque stairstepping piano theme. No World Between Us – a duet with sparse, Lynchian washes of guitar from Amir Weiss – has an icy gothic rock feel, but with a loose rhythm that owes more to jazz. Fort goes deeper and even more darkly into that idiom with All By Yourself, a trio with her sister plus bass clarinetist Nitai Levi, before the instruments go off on a a jaunty improvisational tangent. And Now Is the Time – also with Anat on piano – looks back to Nina Simone for inspiration.

Fort’s originals leading a quintet are straight-up jazz, lively and rhythmic, with a similarly moody edge that brings to mind the work of another Israeli artist, Avishai Cohen. And her choice of Wild As the Wind is particularly apt, a richly dynamic take that starts absolutely ghostly and then picks up with a bittersweet edge: And just when you think you have her pegged as an enigmatic jazz/classical type, you discover at the bottom of the page that she likes ska-punk. Go figure. It’s more likely that she’ll air out her more introspective stuff at the show next week…but wouldn’t it be cool if she threw a Hub City Stompers song into the mix to shake up the room…

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