Naphtali Aharoni, 87 year old Israeli jazz musicia

[Guy Berger]

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Then Armstrong said, 'Take a solo'

By Ben Shalev

Except for a few bored employees, there was no one in the lobby of the Kings Hotel in Jerusalem. Naphtali Aharoni and Nechama Rozler, who perform there three times a week, finished playing the theme song from "The Godfather" and wondered whether there was any reason to continue. It was 5:45 P.M. and they were under contract to play until 7:30. "But for whom?" Rozler asked. "There's nobody here." Aharoni thought for a moment and said: "It doesn't matter, Nechama. We have to continue. If there are people, all the better. But

our job is first and foremost to play for the lobby."

Aharoni is 87. For 44 years, he played bass in the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. He retired 20 years ago, but continues to play piano at hotels and functions, especially with Rozler. Rozler, a violinist, is a generation younger but is also a JSO retiree...

"The thing that really ignited the spirit of jazz in Palestine was the outbreak of World War II," Aharoni recalled.

"The British army sent musicians right up to the line of fire, and in Eretz Yisrael [pre-State Israel] there were tens of thousands of British soldiers, so plenty of bands came here. I especially remember the No. 1 Royal Air Force Command Band - a wonderful Big Band from the British air force. There were two trumpet players who were excellent swing musicians and a saxophonist named Jack Howard, who was a big drunkard but a wonderful musician. We were crazy about the way they played. Our luck was that one of the players in the band came down with hepatitis and they had to stay in Jerusalem for two months. So not only did we have opportunities to hear the band many times, but the excellent English musicians would come to the cafes where we played and would join us."

Where did they play jazz then in Jerusalem? And who played?

"In the bar of the King David Hotel, 'La Rejence', there was Yorik Mandelbaum, who played a real soft saxophone, real cool, and the pianist Helmut Frank, who played as if he had four hands. To be honest, there were a bit too many ideas in his playing. Another place was the Queens Bar, which was full every night. The saxophonist Dusia Wexler played there. He breathed jazz and did beautiful improvisations. And do you know who his pianist was? You'll be surprised: Moshe Wilensky [a veteran composer of popular Israeli music]. He played nicely, catching on to the style. I remember that he really loved the blues."

Between 1940 and 1945, there was a blackout in Jerusalem, a fact that only increased the attraction of the bars and cafes where jazz was played.

"There were places where they closed the curtains and left the lights on," Alexander said. "But in the Queens Bar, for example, they played jazz in the dark and danced to jazz in the dark. It was very romantic," Aharoni recalled. "You have to understand that today jazz is music of the elite, but in those days it was the popular music, the music to which people danced."

The peak of Aharoni's jazz career came in the early 1950s, when Louis Armstrong visited Israel. Armstrong's bass player slipped while deplaning, so the manager quickly called Aharoni and rushed him into a taxi to the rehearsal for that evening's performance at Jerusalem's Binyanei Ha'uma (now part of the International Convention Center).

"Do you know what it means to play with the greatest jazz musicians?," Aharoni said. "My hands were shaking. Armstrong saw that I was nervous and said, 'Don't be tense. Read the notes, everything will be okay.' And it really was okay. I played by the notes, and there was even a moment when Armstrong turned to me and made a motion with his head to indicate, 'You can take a solo now.' But I preferred not to play solo. Like I said, my hands were shaking," Aharoni said.

He does not remember exactly what they played at the concert. "But I clearly remember how Armstrong's trumpet shined and how he perspired a lot and kept mopping his face with a handkerchief. At the end of the performance, I went up to him with the concert program and asked him to sign it. Later, when I was having financial problems, I sold the program to a collector for the respectable sum of 25 pounds sterling."