Biography
New York City serves as home base for saxophonist, composer, and bandleader Oded Tzur, whose resonant, yearning, and warmly expressive sound probes deep ties linking modal jazz, Indian classical music, and additional microtonal lineages. A narrative sensibility shaped by diverse storytelling traditions runs through his pieces, which trace both concealed and evident links joining ancient and contemporary musical worlds. Tzur created the saxophone method known as “The Middle Path,” which broadens the horn’s command of microtonal intervals. His initial pair of albums as leader—Like a Great River from 2015 and Translator’s Note from 2017—appeared on Enja Records’ Yellowbird imprint and prompted descriptions of his work as “a new type of Swing” while drawing broad critical praise. Here Be Dragons, issued in 2020 as his first ECM date under his own name, highlighted an assured capacity to fuse Eastern and Western idioms. On 2022’s Isabela he constructed a jazz raga in extended suite form, and in 2024 he delivered My Prophet, his third ECM release.
Born in Israel in 1984, Tzur received formal musical instruction from childhood onward. He first encountered jazz before studying classical saxophone with Professor Gersh Geller, undergoing intensive training across multiple idioms. An interest in improvisation drew him toward the centuries-old practices of Indian classical music, which became central to his artistic focus. Seeking to perform this microtonal art on the saxophone, Tzur spent ten years developing and perfecting the technique later called “The Middle Path,” allowing the instrument to glide between pitches and isolate precise microtones.
Accepted in 2007 into the Indian music curriculum at the Rotterdam World Music Academy, he immersed himself in Hindustani classical phrasing, rhythm, and intonation under Bansuri master Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia—the first saxophonist to study with the flutist. Chaurasia exerted a decisive influence; their lessons consisted of repeated exchanges in which the maestro played melodies on the Bansuri and Tzur rendered them on saxophone. This meticulous work sharpened Tzur’s approach, attracting notice within the international saxophone community. Chaurasia characterized the resulting sound with the observation: “If a curtain were to be drawn in front of him, no one could tell which instrument was being played.”
Tzur relocated to New York City in 2011 and formed the Oded Tzur Quartet with bassist Petros Klampanis, drummer Ziv Ravitz, and pianist Shai Maestro. The ensemble prompted a decisive expansion in his writing, as he began bridging the tonal worlds of Indian classical music and jazz rather than merely negotiating intervals on the horn. The group performed across New York, Israel, and Europe. After gaining experience through live work, touring, and soundtrack projects, the quartet signed with Enja’s Yellowbird imprint and released Like a Great River in 2015. Radio France presented the album as “a discovery,” bookending one of its jazz broadcasts with the recording. Reviewers highlighted its melodic and spiritual qualities, introducing Tzur to global audiences as a musical storyteller. Subsequent tours built audiences in Israel, France, and Russia. Translator’s Note followed in 2017, merging American jazz with Middle and Far Eastern modalities, rhythmic and harmonic frameworks, and Tzur’s microtonal language. Japan’s CD Journal likened the ensemble’s maturity to “The Coltrane Quartet of the 21st Century.” The band toured material from both albums throughout Israel, France, Belgium, England, Italy, and the Netherlands.
Around this period Tzur assembled a revised quartet retaining Klampanis alongside pianist Nitai Hershkovits and drummer Johnathan Blake. He then joined ECM. In June 2019 the musicians recorded at Auditorio Stelio Molo in Lugano, Switzerland, with producer Manfred Eicher and engineer Stefano Amerio. Here Be Dragons appeared in February 2020 and Isabela in May 2022. The latter set combined raga principles with jazz in a sequence of quiet reflections and forceful statements, presenting a unified musical and philosophical outlook rather than surface-level borrowing or imitation.
Tzur and his quartet issued My Prophet in July 2024, his third ECM album. While remaining on the distinctive path he had forged, the music ventured further into meditative, concentrated improvisation and featured some of his most intense playing to date. New drummer Cyrano Almeida contributed a fresh voice alongside pianist Hershkovits and bassist Petros Klampanis.
Born in Israel in 1984, Tzur received formal musical instruction from childhood onward. He first encountered jazz before studying classical saxophone with Professor Gersh Geller, undergoing intensive training across multiple idioms. An interest in improvisation drew him toward the centuries-old practices of Indian classical music, which became central to his artistic focus. Seeking to perform this microtonal art on the saxophone, Tzur spent ten years developing and perfecting the technique later called “The Middle Path,” allowing the instrument to glide between pitches and isolate precise microtones.
Accepted in 2007 into the Indian music curriculum at the Rotterdam World Music Academy, he immersed himself in Hindustani classical phrasing, rhythm, and intonation under Bansuri master Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia—the first saxophonist to study with the flutist. Chaurasia exerted a decisive influence; their lessons consisted of repeated exchanges in which the maestro played melodies on the Bansuri and Tzur rendered them on saxophone. This meticulous work sharpened Tzur’s approach, attracting notice within the international saxophone community. Chaurasia characterized the resulting sound with the observation: “If a curtain were to be drawn in front of him, no one could tell which instrument was being played.”
Tzur relocated to New York City in 2011 and formed the Oded Tzur Quartet with bassist Petros Klampanis, drummer Ziv Ravitz, and pianist Shai Maestro. The ensemble prompted a decisive expansion in his writing, as he began bridging the tonal worlds of Indian classical music and jazz rather than merely negotiating intervals on the horn. The group performed across New York, Israel, and Europe. After gaining experience through live work, touring, and soundtrack projects, the quartet signed with Enja’s Yellowbird imprint and released Like a Great River in 2015. Radio France presented the album as “a discovery,” bookending one of its jazz broadcasts with the recording. Reviewers highlighted its melodic and spiritual qualities, introducing Tzur to global audiences as a musical storyteller. Subsequent tours built audiences in Israel, France, and Russia. Translator’s Note followed in 2017, merging American jazz with Middle and Far Eastern modalities, rhythmic and harmonic frameworks, and Tzur’s microtonal language. Japan’s CD Journal likened the ensemble’s maturity to “The Coltrane Quartet of the 21st Century.” The band toured material from both albums throughout Israel, France, Belgium, England, Italy, and the Netherlands.
Around this period Tzur assembled a revised quartet retaining Klampanis alongside pianist Nitai Hershkovits and drummer Johnathan Blake. He then joined ECM. In June 2019 the musicians recorded at Auditorio Stelio Molo in Lugano, Switzerland, with producer Manfred Eicher and engineer Stefano Amerio. Here Be Dragons appeared in February 2020 and Isabela in May 2022. The latter set combined raga principles with jazz in a sequence of quiet reflections and forceful statements, presenting a unified musical and philosophical outlook rather than surface-level borrowing or imitation.
Tzur and his quartet issued My Prophet in July 2024, his third ECM album. While remaining on the distinctive path he had forged, the music ventured further into meditative, concentrated improvisation and featured some of his most intense playing to date. New drummer Cyrano Almeida contributed a fresh voice alongside pianist Hershkovits and bassist Petros Klampanis.
Albums
Singles
