For those of you not in the know, Albare is the nom de guerre of Albert Dadon, a virtuoso jazz guitarist with a strong melodic sense and a wealth of global influences.

Born in Morocco and raised in Israel and France, Albare first worked as a musician in France, before emigrating to Australia at the age of 27. He is not only well known as a jazz musician but has maintained a highly successful career as one of Australia’s most prominent musician entrepreneurs.

He is undoubtedly a major force in Australian jazz, having directed the Melbourne Jazz Festival for many years and as chairman of the Australian Jazz Awards. In 2008 he received the Order of Australia for his service to the Arts and Business.

Albert Dadon, stage name ALBARE, was born in 1957. Albare started playing music at the ripe age of 8 when his late mother bought a classic acoustic guitar for his birthday. Living in Israel at the time, he became one of the first students of the freshly opened conservatory of music in Dimona Israel.

His love for the instrument only became obvious when his parents moved to France when he turned 10. His discovery of Django Reinhardt, Jimi Hendrix, Wes Montgomery, and later Antonio Carlos Jobim, set Albare into a lifetime of study, composing and playing the instrument.

Albare remembers that the sense of melody he brings to his compositions and improvisation was always present. Compositions written in his teenage years, such as ‘What Goes Around’ (from the album by the same name) and Zarathoustra (Midnight Blues) were recorded in the 90s and still form part of the Albare repertoire today.

The songs presented on his brand new album Freedom (out June 3rd, 2022 via ALFI Records) are all original compositions by either Albare or his collaboration with Phil Turcio which has been ongoing for over thirty years.

Freedom is a tribute to the symbol Jazz represents everywhere. In a world where freedom of expression is increasingly being censored, Albare says “Jazz is the voice of freedom and it shall never be silenced”.

1. Freedom
2. Adues
3. La Fiesta (w/ Intro)
4. Lost Compass
5. Love Is Always
6. Randy Makes Me Smile
7. Shimmozle
8. Sketches
9. Sunny Samba
10. New Expectations

This exuberantly charged and vibrantly spirited new album opens on the free flowing title track Freedom and the upbeat hipsway of Adues and backs those up seamlessly with the gently frenetic swinger La Fiesta (w/ Intro), the triumphantly euphoric musings within Lost Compass and then comes the late night jazz club appeal of Love Is Always.

Next up is one of my own personal favorites on this vital new recording, the trumpet-imbibed magnificence of Randy Makes Me Smile and that is in turn followed by the low slung rhythmic swing of Shimmozle, the precisely manicured guitar work within the almost delicate Sketches, the album rounding out on the mid-tempo melodies of Sunny Samba, coming to a close on the hot summer’s day breeze of New Expectations.

Long before Bob Dylan and Paul Simon hit a societal raw nerve through their protest songs of the 1960s, Jazz had long established itself as arguably the first activist music – becoming the poster child for emancipation and liberty along the way.

Such is its power that totalitarian regimes similar as North Korea sought to ban it and jail musicians who ventured into its orbit. At this strange point in our western democratic history, where one by one, our freedoms are being eroded, it is good to remind ourselves of the genesis of Jazz – as an expression of freedom.

In this spirit, we conjure once again the activist roots inherent in the art form, in order to celebrate and protect our hard won freedoms.

We shall never be silenced. [Albert Dadon AM aka Albare]

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