Album Notes

Jaffa Road nominated for 2010 JUNO AWARD World Music Album of the Year!

“Jaffa Road blends Jewish, jazz, Indian and Arabic music with electronica and dub. The result is fantastic.”

CBC Radio One Fresh Air

Jaffa Road is much more than a pleasing collision of world musics – it’s a rich aural soundscape that grants the listener an escape to places familiar, yet unknown. The Middle East? India, North America? Difficult to place because it’s a true fusion of Diaspora Roots music – Middle Eastern and Jewish folk music descended from its original Hebrew, following its cultural displacement to Europe, America, Asia and all points beyond.

Lead vocalist Aviva Chernick enchants with spellbinding explorations, as founder and multi-instrumentalist Aaron Lightstone, Chris Gartner, Sundar Viswanathan and Jeff Wilson blend guitar, oud, sax, flute, bansuri, bass ,driving percussion to arrive at an other-worldly destination that embraces the music of many countries, as it courts dub reggae, funk and electronica along its path.

Traditional sounds meet free-form, if not the avant-garde as ancient and original Hebrew, Spanish and English poetry marries to core elements of jazz, and global folk styles, to create a true world fusion on a virtuosic scale. Grand Prize Winners of this year’s John Lennon Song Writing Contest for World Music, their debut release has climbed world music charts in record time. All roads, it would seem, may lead to Jaffa. Truly a realignment of cultural boundaries to create a musical force driven to bring music-lovers together as one. This is the music of a place we all want to travel to – as quickly as we can get there.


Please check out their official website for more info. www.jaffaroad.com

Jaffa Road’s live performances and debut CD break boundaries while paying tribute to traditions. Their recent Cd release concert presented by the Ashkenaz foundation and Small World Music society. They played to a full house with standing room only at Lula Lounge, Toronto’s favorite world music venue.

"Jaffa Road was one of the hits of the 2008 Ashkenaz Festival. They played to standing room-only-crowds and delighted all with their energetic performance and highly inventive fusion of traditional Jewish music influences with a variety of world music sounds."

-Eric Stein, Artistic Director, Ashkenaz Festival, Toronto

"old wine in a new bottle - sparkling jewish and israeli music"

Dubi Lenz - Israeli National radio

"Their music is incredibly diverse, rooted in centuries-old traditions yet with a keen eye to the future ...It's played to the highest level of skill with infectious chemistry amongst the musicians, and has an inherent consciousness about it that is truly inspiring to hear.

-Sebastian Cook- Small World Music Society