Press
"His melodies are direct and often plangent, his harmonies and rhythms sturdy and repetitious. His latest album, “Blue Nights,” draws together influences from the Middle East and North Africa with jazz-academy thinking." -Giovanni Russonello, THE NEW YORK TIMES (USA)
"Blue Nights draws from an array of elements including bebop, rock, pop, Arabic maqam scales, the Gnawa patterns of North Africa’s Hausa people, and sounds that Borochov encountered in a local Yemenite-Jewish synagogue in his native Jaffa, Israel. What is surprising is the way the band manages to introduce changes without disturbing the silken flow of the music."-Saby Reyes-Kulkarni, BANDCAMP DAILY (USA)
"Trumpeter Itamar Borochov has spent years exploring creative convergences of jazz and music connected to his upbringing in the multicultural Israeli city of Jaffa. Within those contexts, he's become adept at using quarter tones and other elements of Sephardic spiritual music, along with the North African and Bukharian sounds he heard growing up, in various jazz constructs. Those influences, along with echoes of the Arabic and African-laced world grooves Borochov worked with in Ravid Kahalnai's Yemen Blues outfit, all filter through the trumpeter's stunning third album as a leader." -Jennifer Odell, DOWNBEAT MAGAZINE (USA)
-WBGO.ORG LetterOne Rising Stars Jazz Award 2021
-ALLMUSIC.COM (USA) Favorite Latin & World Albums 2019
-ALLMUSIC.COM (USA) Favorite Jazz Albums 2019
-ALLMUSIC.COM (USA) Best of 2019 review
- DOWNBEAT MAGAZINE (USA) 2017
- THE TOWER MAGAZINE (USA) 2014 [Feature]
"I was dazzled by the trumpet sound, incredibly full, fleshy, this way of playing on the air that gives all the features of an astonishing fluidity, even in the high register. What comes out of his trumpet is never struck, you never feel the effort: It's velvet.”
-JF Mondot, JAZZ MAGAZINE (France) 2018
“Itamar Borochov once again exposes what he knows best: invoking his talents as an assertive melodist and a musician inhabited by a superior mind.” -Alex Dutilh, FRANCE MUSIQUE (France) 2018
“an introspective album with mixed scents of the shores of the Mediterranean.” -Jean-Pierre Goffin, JAZZ AROUND MAGAZINE (France)
“It’s an almost mystical universe.” -Philippe Desmond, ACTION JAZZ (France) 2018
-Laurent Dussutour, CITIZEN JAZZ (France) [Album Review]
“Trumpeter Itamar Borochov produces a feast of musical exploration on this, his third album, combining influences from across the Middle East and North Africa with a jazz quartet line-up. The result is rich, detailed and engrossing music with an individual sound. I was struck” -Mark McKergow, LONDON JAZZ NEWS (UK)
"The album is simply divine, in the spiritual sense. It touches all our senses with its lyricism, leaving the listeners with a lasting impression. 5 Stars” -Nathalie Freson, UK VIBE (UK) 2018
“An air of hushed reverence had fallen over the audience as the sense of spirituality that informs all of Borochov’s music was at its most palpable. With the tension now released the audience clapped loudly and cheered for more...” -Ian Mann, THE JAZZ MANN (UK) 2018 [Live Review]
"A fascinating, multi faceted album. There’s a profound air of spirituality about the music, which is played by the Borochov quartet with an understated virtuosity and a simmering, low key intensity."
-Ian Mann, THE JAZZ MANN (UK) 2018 [Album Review]
-Ruth Fisher, JAZZ FM (UK) 2018 [Radio Interview]
“Itamar Borochov is a master jazz innovator.” -Robin Arends, JAZZHALO (Belgium)
- Jordi De Beule, JAZZ&MO' (Belgium) 2019 [Live Review]
“The Israeli trumpeter takes us to a more peaceful world on his new album ‘Blue Nights’ and miraculously gives us comfort. With his new quarter-tone trumpet, he is immersing himself more intensively than before in the world of maqams - the scales that are played in Arabic music.” -Sarah Seidel, NDR (Germany)
"Breaking down traditions and merging them into something new is one of the central ideas of jazz - one that Itamar Borochov cultivates with a remarkable virtuosity and a fantastic feeling for melodies and moods."
-Olaf Maikopf, JAZZ THETIK (Germany) 2018
-Andreas E. Müller, WETZLARER NEUE ZEITUNG (Germany) 2019 [Live Review]
-CONCERTO MAGAZINE (Austria) 2018
-Milan Tesar, KULTURNI MAGAZINE (Czech Republic) 2019
-JAZZ.ROZHLAS.CZ/ (Czech Republic) 2019