Jazz guitarist Ben-Hur reflects on his root, good ‘Fortuna’

By Paul Clark

November 6, 2009

IF YOU GO

What: Roni Ben-Hur Quartet in concert When: 8:30 p.m. today and Saturday; 6:30 p.m. Sunday fundraiser for JEEP (Jewish Education for Every Person) Where: Blue Wisp Jazz Club, 318 E. Eighth St., Downtown Cost: $10 for regular shows; $20 Sunday fundraiser Information: 513-241-9477; www.thebluewisp.com

Like his music, the title of jazz guitarist Roni Ben-Hur’s new album reflects multilayered ideas. “Fortuna,” released last month, is named after the goddess of good fortune, but it’s also the name of Ben-Hur’s mother.

“The title (evokes) the positive attitude my mother had trying to make a better life for all, rather than dwelling on things that had happened,” Ben-Hur says. “It’s about moving forward. And I feel very fortunate in life. ‘Fortuna’ seemed to encapsulate all of that.”

The CD will provide material for Ben-Hur’s three shows this weekend at the Blue Wisp, along with selections from his six previous albums and standards reflecting Ben-Hur’s hard-bop roots and his facility with “straight-ahead Brazilian.” Ben-Hur’s sound is influenced by bebop pioneers such as Charlie Parker and Wes Montgomery, as well as the classical repertoire of Spanish guitarist Andres Segovia.

“My jazz roots are derived from hard bop, bebop,” Ben-Hur says. “It’s the foundation of my music. I love the concept that music has a real great discipline for freedom, where you operate in structures and break free. Charlie Parker never puts limits around himself. You go where it takes you. It’s a constant search for freedom.”

Ben-Hur’s fortunes began in Israel, where he was born to Tunisian immigrants as the youngest of seven children.

“Israel is the melting pot that’s always been influenced by varieties of music,” he says. “There are classically trained musicians form Eastern Europe and interesting Middle Eastern rhythms and folk songs all around. Each country – Yemen, others – developed its own sound for prayers. Jazz provides the ability to incorporate any sound. It has a swing feel, a locomotive rhythmic feel similar to North African and Middle Eastern sound.”

Ben-Hur, 47, taught music in Israel until 1985 when he immigrated to the United States and became a fixture in New York’s jazz clubs, playing with mentors such as Barry Harris and Walter Brooker. He also teaches at the Kaufman Center’s Lucy Moses School and has established high school jazz programs in New York after being recruited for the task by pop singer Bette Midler.

Not surprisingly, Ben-Hur laments the death of jazz programs for youth in America.

“It’s a missed opportunity in this country, not injecting jazz” into music education, he says. That’s a passion he shares with is wife, jazz vocalist and Cincinnati native Amy London, herself a professor of jazz studies at the New School in New York.

London, formerly of Bond Hill, is a 1975 graduate of Walnut Hills High School. In a remarkable coincidence, Ben-Hur’s brother, Shimon, married one of London’s childhood friends, whom he met in Israel. Shimon’s wife, Lisa Ben-Hur, was a Walnut Hills classmate of London’s. The couple lives in the Cincinnati area, where Shimon works in real estate.

“Shimon met Lisa in Jerusalem at university,” Roni Ben-Hur says. “I met Amy 12, 14 years after that. I remember visiting my family in Israel, and Lisa had left her yearbook there. I looked at it, and sure enough, there were pictures of Amy, so the first pictures I showed my family of my girlfriend were from her yearbook.”