MAETAR

(From left) Hagai Izraeli, Peter Buck and Itai Disraeli.
Every Saturday night at the Disraeli household in Kibbutz Mishmar Haemek in northern Israel, the mandolins would come out and three generations of Disraelis would start to play and sing.
“My grandparents were the original chalutzim [pioneers] who came into Israel before it was even a country, and my grandfather was a poet who wrote songs,” said Itai Disraeli, who now plays bass and percussion for the band Maetar. “So on Saturday night we would get together with them and play harmonies — this music is in our blood.”
In 1991, Disraeli and his brother, Hagai Izraeli, left Israel, but not the music. Three years ago they joined with drummer Peter Buck to start Maetar, a jazz/funk/rock/hip-hop/reggae band that plays clubs all over Los Angeles.
“People ask us what kind of music do we play, and even though we try pretty hard to find a box, the reality is that our music is outside the box,” Disraeli said. “We contain musical influences from Duke Ellington, Jimi Hendrix, klezmer music, Chinese music and Arab music, but our music is totally original. We are innovators, not imitators.”
“We try to intermingle our sounds and voices,” Izraeli said. “It’s a collective sound. At any time any one of us can be leading or following.”
“But it’s very coherent,” Disraeli interjected. “It’s not meaningless meanderings into the jungles of our mind.”
The two chose the name Maetar at the suggestion of Izraeli’s wife. In Hebrew, Maetar has a few meanings. It means string, as in instrument strings. If you break the word up, mae and tar, it means water that you take with you on a journey; another translation is vibrations of change.
These meanings, say the brothers, embody the spirit of their music.
“The beauty of jazz is that it’s a model of democracy,” Izraeli said. “Every person that plays can be the utmost of who he or she is and, at the same time, his powers of [being] individual do not separate him from the group. Music is the true democracy in action.”
Maetar will be playing at Café Z at the Skirball Cultural Center, on Oct. 30, noon-2 p.m. Free. For more information, visit www.maetar.com.
- The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles

"If you think jazz is for old guys, or for young guys who act old, let MAETAR have a whack at you…. They groove with funky ease, goof with spy movie bravado and cut loose into psychedelic drift, not forgetting to bring things down to earth with slow, meditative melodies that breathe sheer beauty."

-Greg Burk, LA Weekly.



"MAETAR is one of the most original and exciting bands of true musicians to come along in years. I've listened to bands all around the world and MAETAR has the perfect mix and range of styles/influences to please and make lifelong fans of anyone who listens to their music. They are truly one of a kind and should not be missed. They are going
places and all will follow."

- Scotty Barnhart (The Count Basie Orchestra Professor Of Jazz

Trumpet/Jazz Studies/Artist-In-Residence Florida State University)





"When I hear MAETAR I am transported to a sexy hip 60's art film with women in clever outfits... Their music also makes me want to kiss someone or have a martini."

- Kat Corbett, On Air Personality, KROQ





"Awesome musicianship and unstoppable grooves. MAETAR has added so

much quality to our radio show."

- Joe Kelley (Upper Room with Joe Kelley and Gi Dussault)



"A cross between The Red Hot Chili Peppers, George Clinton and Miles Davis; MAETAR is a wonderful mixture of both Jazz and Funk. A great live act!!!"

- Delphine Simonis (KPFK's The Dark Room)
- Various Publications.

OCT. 29 - NOV. 4, 2004
The Battle of a Band
Maetar explodes a world of funky stuff
by Greg Burk
Who’s the studly farm boy strutting the bass, with his Carnaby hair, sculpted ’burns and satin shirt bringing on 1972 Raspberries flashbacks? That’s Itai Disraeli — he also reads ancient wisdom in the original languages, as it happens. And who’s the dome-cropped polar opposite on the other side of the stage, blowing soulful, yearning lines on trumpet, the soft-featured, sensitive one, uncomfortable in gaudy stage pajamas? That’s Itai’s brother, Hagai Izraeli, who likes to imagine the music as a movie. How about the drummer, rolling out the funk with carefree chopsmanship? He’s Berklee-schooled Peter Buck, a “left-wing born-again Christian” who dedicates every note to Jesus.
Oh. You knew something was up the minute you tuned in to “F Jam,” the hooky, spacious lead cut of the debut album by the instrumental groove trio Maetar (Hebrew for “string”). And that’s just the skeleton of a sound that opens up live into multiple dimensions: jazz, rock, blues and Middle Eastern melodic/ rhythmic launch points; spontaneous switch-offs to flutes and percussion auxiliaries; zoned-out effects splashes; and especially a capering, grinning sense of delight that visibly soaks everything these dudes do.
You had a clue, but it takes a little conversation at Hagai’s artfully severe West L.A. family bunker to appreciate the true strangeness of the ingredients that combined to create the fresh mess that is Maetar.
Picture Itai and Hagai in Israel, their birthplace and spiritual fountainhead. Raised on a kibbutz, they obsess on music, all kinds. They grit through their mandatory hitches in the army. Gaining renown for their playing skills, they cross paths with some American exile musicians locally called Black Hebrews, who’ve traveled through Africa into the Promised Land questing for roots in the 12 Tribes. They champion the initially unwelcome visitors and get them accepted. The two glean life/music lessons from Judaism, from the wanderers, from visiting jazzmen such as Dizzy Gillespie and Jaki Byard. They read about Ellington and Sun Ra, get the Amiri Baraka cultural perspective. Their minds explode.
Now picture Itai and Hagai in their Herzeliyya homes during the 1991 Gulf War. Their TV screens go blue — the universal signal that a Scud is screaming down. Bomb? Gas? They don’t know. They’ve got 60 seconds to slap gas masks on babies, pets and themselves and dive into their sealed safe rooms. Wheeeeoooo SMASH BOOM! Must’ve been a few streets away. They’re okay — this time. Repeat as necessary.
Their minds explode again, this time with the urgency that they’ve got to get the hell out of Israel, locus of danger and provider of no work. They board a plane for the USA, home of their inspiration, dropping their gas masks in a box by the boarding door. They become Americans. They raise families. They make music.

- LA Weekly