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bobrosenbaum · 4 years

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Harold Rubin Quartet, Jaffa, Israel, April 1995.

I've been thinking a lot about Harold since he left us just over a month ago. He was an artist of such integrity, breadth and warmth that his passing is hard to reconcile, even at the age of 87.

It's hard to contain Harold's work. He was an architect, a painter, a poet and a musician, creating an endearing presence in each role. He was also an anarchist of the first degree.

I knew him mainly as a jazz clarinetist, the kind of player who bursts into your consciousness and makes you aware of how much you still haven't heard in this world.

Harold was one of those rare artists who leads us to be creative, disregard the big money, and take chances – his work is all about the truth of the spirit.

In 1995 I shot this series at a time of great personal upheaval. Recently divorced and hurting, I was thirsty for honesty and renewal. An unlikely chain of events brought me to the Yadaiim Gallery in Jaffa, where I drank my fill with the phenomenon that was Harold.

He was leading an energetic, typically unclassifiable performance; something completely outside that swung fiercely, eminating from deeply in-the-pocket. Each of the other musicians – saxophonist Albert Beger, bassist Daphna Sadeh and drummer Avi Agababa – brought their own distinctive voices, yet created a unit that was in complete sync with Harold.

I was instantly swept up by the combination of Harold's brazen attack, his tender clarinet sound, his acrobatic lyricism. I remember that he played like there was no tomorrow. In fact, Harold always played that way.

Harold was not just a truly original performer, he was also a wonderful, generous human being who added great spirit to my life. On each occasion that we met, he always had some wise counsel for me. I'll always cherish the time he looked intently at the group image shot in Jaffa (above) and said, "You've got to do more of this, man!"

Late in his career, Harold was acknowledged with Israel's Landau Prize for his performing career, but it was really just a token nod – not nearly enough for such a dedicated innovator and shape-shifter.

To get an authentic moving picture of Harold, I recommend the 2012 documentary about him Magnificent Failure directed by his wife Miriam's daughter Jasmine Kainy and produced by Noam Shalev.

For a first taste of Harold's music, try Blue But What recorded with his Zaviot Quartet. When you're ready for something more adventurous, try Three on a Thin Line recorded live with bassist Barre Phillips and percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani in 2009. You can also learn more about Harold and his work on the Zaviot web site.

Rest easy Harold, you've created more truth and compassion in this world. You will be missed dearly.

See more images from Harold's 1995 Jaffa performance here.

#Harold Rubin #jazz #clarinet #israel #zaviot #painting #architecture #poetry #bob rosenbaum #photography

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opsikpro · 5 years

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Albert Beger & Co.

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By Eyal Hareuveni Recent release from Israeli sax hero Albert Beger and his quartet, and the debut release of one of his students’ free-improv trio GOG. Albert Beger Quartet – The Gate (NoBusiness, 2019) ****

The Beger Quartet is Beger’s most stable outfit with recording career of about 25 years, featuring a generation younger musicians – pianist Milton…

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rescueonefinancialnet · 5 years

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WSJ Article on Debt Relief Scams

Thought you might find this of interest

Soaring Student Debt Opens Door to Relief Scams Same testimonials appeared across 26 websites of supposedly different companies; former employee says company submitted claims based on false information

By Jean Eaglesham, Michael Tobin, and Coulter Jones Aug. 26, 2019 9:40 a.m. ET

Financial Preparation Services of Irvine, Calif. boasts on its website three glowing testimonials for its debt-relief services for studentloans. It quotes Anthony Zwichirowski of California, Dawn Robinson of New Hampshire and a smiling Dean Edelman of Virginia, who says using the company "was the smartest move I have made since graduating."

One or more of the three ostensibly happy borrowers also appears, with slight variations, on at least 25 other websites of purportedly different companies offering student-loan debt-relief in the last four years, The Wall Street Journal found.

Student debt is soaring —it is now nearly $1.5 trillion—and defaults are at a record. That has been fertile ground for companies that promise to help stretched borrowers by navigating the maze of federal programs that can reduce or forgive debts for those who qualify, such as public-service workers or people on low incomes.

Some companies operate legally, although there is nothing they offer that borrowers can't get free, regulators say. Other firms are outright scams , or make promises to borrowers that are illegal, regulators and consumer advocates warn.

Financial Preparation Services has submitted claims for federal relief based on fictitious information, according to a former employee. Sales teams within the company also switched regularly to using new corporate names and websites, the former employee said. The company is one of several about which federal regulators are demanding information, according to a bankruptcy court filing.

Many of the websites on which the three testimonials are featured appear to be carbon copies, with only the company's name changed. A few companies attributed the same quote to different people: Dean Edelman becomes Dean Ederman of California, for example. Other websites used the same names and photos with different quotes.

Financial Preparation Services didn't respond to emails requesting comment, and couldn't be reached by phone at the number listed on its website. The Journal wasn't able to find Mr. Edelman, Mr. Zwichirowski and Ms. Robinson or ascertain whether they were indeed real people.

A record $89.2 billion of student loans was in default at the end of June, New York Federal Reserve data show. Of the $1.48 trillion outstanding, 11%, or $160 billion, was at least 90 days behind on repayments—and the true rate is likely double that, because only half the loans are currently in repayment.

"We'll do the work for you," Financial Preparation Services says on its website. "No more drowning in a sea of confusing paperwork and processing!" Its fee: $1,195 for document preparation, then $40 a month for almost 20 years—a total of $10,555—according to a 2018 client agreement reviewed by the Journal.

Regulators, including the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, share oversight of such companies. One issue they face is the sheer number of small firms offering these services, many using several names.

"This is a relatively target-rich environment," Michelle Grajales, an FTC attorney, said in an interview. "There are unfortunately a lot of companies that still appear to violate the law." Ms. Grajales didn't comment on Financial Preparation Services specifically.

The regulator has filed nine civil cases against alleged student-loan debt-relief scams since 2017, involving a total of 77 different companies. Financial Preparation Services isn't among those companies being sued.

Many of the FTC cases allege that the companies charged upfront fees for debt relief, which is illegal, or engaged in other prohibited practices such as masquerading as being government-approved, or faking information on applications for federal relief.

Stephanie Beger of Moscow Mills, Mo., a former teacher turned paralegal, says Financial Preparation Services promised to help reduce payments on her $109,000 of student loans when she contacted them in October in response to a text message. "I told them I was married, and we have two incomes and no children," she said.

Ms. Beger signed up. In April, she says she got a notice from the government that a payment was due, and discovered when she called up that Financial Preparation Services had used false information about her to apply for debt relief. "I was told the paperwork said I was a single mother of six," she said. She said she made clear that she had no idea what the company had submitted.

She complained to the Better Business Bureau. In response, Financial Preparation Services refunded the fees she had paid. The company wrote an online response on the BBB's website: "We apologize for your negative experience…We will continue to perfect our process so mistakes do not happen on our clients accounts."

A report by the Government Accountability Office in June identified "indicators of potential fraud or error" in the income-related student loan relief program, including 40,900 plans that were approved based on family sizes of nine or more.

Salespeople at Financial Preparation Services until recently often submitted claims showing a family size of six or seven to qualify callers for debt relief, without the borrower's knowledge, a former employee told the Journal. It couldn't be determined exactly why it changed the practice, but a company email seen by the Journal said that too many of its claims were being rejected.

Financial Preparation Services operates under several different identities, creating new websites every few months, the former employee said. A copy of a sales script, reviewed by the Journal, instructs salespeople when they call customers about payments: "MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT COMPANY NAME: Hi this is NAME with [COMPANY]." The Journal couldn't determine the date of the script.

Red Flags for a Student Loan Debt-Relief Scam The Federal Trade Commission says borrowers should beware of companies that:

• Charge upfront fees. It is illegal for companies to make you pay before they help you. • Promise fast loan forgiveness. Scammers may pretend to offer an easy way to wipe out loans—it doesn't exist. • Pretend to have official endorsements, such as using Department of Education logos. The government doesn't approve any debt relief companies: it advises if you have federal loans to go direct to https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/ • Try to rush you into signing up. Companies may say you have to act fast to qualify for programs: Check them out before you commit to anything. • Demands your student loan ID, or asks you to sign a power of attorney, to deal with the government on your behalf. You can lose control of your finances, and be cut off from information on what's happening to your loans.

Consumer Advocacy Center—doing business as Premier Student Loan Center, whose website quoted identical testimonials to Financial Preparation Services—filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in January.

It shut down because of lawsuits by former clients and "investigations from different state attorney generals," according to a court filing. Despite pretax revenues last year of more than $19.4 million, the company had only $24,500 in its bank account when it filed the petition, the bankruptcy trustee said.

Albert Kim, the company's owner, told a bankruptcy court hearing "the possibility of getting into a big lawsuit with, you know, federal regulators made it basically not worth it to continue at that point."

Mr. Kim didn't respond to requests for comment. His lawyer, Peter Levitt, didn't respond to specific questions but said in a statement that Mr. Kim is committed to ensuring all the businesses he is affiliated with operate legally and to "identifying and correcting any compliance deficiencies."

After the bankruptcy, Premier Student Loan Center's operations appear to have carried on as Financial Preparation Services. In addition to the testimonials on multiple sites, both companies use the same Irvine address on their business license. The Journal also identified several employees who worked for companies with those names according to their social media accounts.

In July, the CFPB filed a subpoena in the Premier Student Loan bankruptcy case, demanding information be sent to the regulator and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. The subpoena named eight companies, including Prime Consulting LLC, which does business as Financial Preparation Services, and 11 people, including Mr. Kim.

The CFPB didn't respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida declined to comment.

One of the companies named in the subpoena is True Count Staffing Inc., which does business as SL Account Management, also based in Irvine.

A representative declined to comment and the company didn't respond to an email seeking comment.

Since the start of 2018, SL Account Management has racked up more than 70 complaints with the FTC, according to a public records request.

One borrower, who described himself as a “war veteran who just wanted to go to college to pursue happiness,” said last year in an FTC complaint that his tax returns and wages have been garnished, he has lost his truck, and "not 1 single cent of my debt has been diminished."

More debt relief tips at ROF review

#debt reliew

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jazzworldquest-blog · 6 years

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USA: Ehran Elisha - Albert Beger - Dave Phillips -Heads(Cimp 2018)

This is the first CD from a hard driving trio. Albert Beger is not well known in North America but is well established and awarded outside our borders. Here he joins Elisha and Phillips for 8 tracks including a 4 part tribute to Milford Graves. This music comes at you with force and conviction. "Kindred Spirit is Ehran Elisha's third release for OutNow Recordings. In this outing Elisha presents two unique quintets interpreting two of his extended compositions: Kindred Soul and Spirit Suite. The musicians in each quintet lend Elisha's work their own individual voice and improvisational vision while the compositions themselves act as perfect frameworks enhancing the collective sound of each quintet. Hence, the pieces feature each musician's individual sound while concurrently presenting a specific unified timbre. Composer-Improviser-Percussionist Ehran Elisha has been leading ensembles in his native New York for nearly three decades. On Kindred Spirit, his new double album, Elisha presents quintet compositions for two separate ensembles recorded within one evening at IBeam, Brooklyn in the spring of 2013. "Spirit Suite", a four-part work, features a one-off meeting between Elisha, Michael Attias, Yoni Kretzmer, Rick Parker and Sean Conly . "Kindred Soul" is a three part suite played by longtime musical partners of Elisha, including his father Haim Elisha, Sam Bardfeld, Dave Phillips, and most poignantly in what turned out to be the fifth and final formal recording with Ehran after 20 years of music and friendship between them, the greatly missed master musician Roy Campbell Jr., to who's memory the entire album is dedicated."-OutNow Recordings SQUIDCO via Blogger https://ift.tt/2A6iBFY

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podilatokafe · 7 years

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Albert Beger, Shay Hazan – Black Mynah (2017) awesome jazz 2017 Creative Sources Albert Beger tenor saxophone, bass clarinet Shay Hazan doublebass, guimbri 1. Bliss 5:36 2. Cycles 6:10 3. Can You? 6:24 4. Kin 6:45 5. The Frog Dance 5:06 6. Ritual 4:51 7. Black Mynah 6:14 ▼

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halas1 · 7 years

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Being in the Eternal

Saxophonist, Albert Beger, describes himself as a person who had gone through a major personal change, and hence, musical change in his life. Whereas he describes his past self as a critical and unhappy person, the man sat in front me in the Halas studio during our meeting was a picture of openness, acceptance and embracement of the unknown. Whereas I imagine Albert Beger always being an essential person, he claims his current life experience embraces process more than concrete goals. Although he still recognizes the place of ambition, and indeed the role this trait continues playing in his own life, he attempts to distance himself, and indeed his students, from prostration to given rules. Beger would rather take the path of openness and love, accepting a process as a unique personal journey that could not take any other form than the form it does. Finding exclamation marks radical, he equates the question mark with beauty. In itself, this might sound like a fairly common life-philosophy, but in the case of Albert Beger we are encountered by an experimental approach that was shaped by this same philosophy, or perhaps even was the initial impetus for this life change.

Commencing his music tuition with the flute at the ripe age of 22, Beger supposedly strays from a prescribed and safe path in favour for a great unknown. Harbouring only a deep admiration for music and a need to express himself, Beger seeks the professional help of Uri Toepliz – the then first flute of the Israeli Philharmonic. Flabbergasted with his anti-conservative approach, yet moved by his unwavering resolve, Toeplitz agrees to take on the young and inexperienced Beger – a relationship that continues for 6 years. Beger then takes on the saxophone, mentioning a simple reasoning: “with flute it was Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull; the saxophone was because of Coltraine’s Love Supreme.” At the age of 30, Beger moves to Boston in favour of studies at the famous Berkley School – there he takes on the tutelage of the nearly retired Joe Viola. Beger recalls these as formative years, yet notes that the only connection between the person he was then, and the one he is now, was his love for music and playing.

With a background in jazz, rock and prog, Beger has always been fascinated with noise, or what he would later realize were called extended techniques. Yet although Beger always took an exploratory approach to playing, his compositions disclose an ongoing research in melody and form. Beger relates to his meeting with late Israeli composer, Arie Shapira, as a turning point in his playing. Shapira, stemming from a classical gone avant-garde approach, was a champion of non-classical performers, as it was with them he felt he was able to achieve a recklessness frowned upon within the classical realms. Beger, from his point of view, encountered a music that begs to be performed as written, yet allows much freedom and interpretation, and sounding throughout like a structured improvisation, although fully notated. This prompted in Beger a taste for what he refers to as Compo-improvisation. Not a genre specific practice, it allows Beger to explore the boundaries between a through-composed venture and improvisation. Beger describes his work-process with his current quartet, saying they could be playing from notes, or flow charts, or graphic representation, which emphasize the melodic and formal structure of the piece. So long these are kept in tact, anything goes. In His current band, going out on a solo could potentially lead the piece in unseen directions and indeed, towards new themes, yet as long as there is a feeling of melodic exploration that doesn’t neglect form and process, Beger is game! “My spiritual dad was Coltraine – I wanted to play just like that. Later, I had to teach myself how to not play like that.” This prompted in him a musical research with no boundaries, where any music could become a potential influence: “When asked, I tell people I am a jazz musician just to make it easier. In Israel I am branded as a free-jazz musician. But all of these rubrics simply don’t suffice – they diminish the practice and refer to a scene that is no longer in existence. Free jazz was of the 60s. Jazz?” he asks, “who plays bee-bop today?”

For Beger, teaching and practicing became a way of life – an ongoing exploration that could potentially take him anywhere, certainly within music, but also in life at large. “This is the 21st century” he claims, “and no definition can truly capture the shift that is happening in art.” …”There is a problem of wanting to define everything, make it supposedly objective, which is simply negated by a curiosity that began to be explored as early as the 60s. For instance – the course I teach for Master students at the Rubin Academy is not geared towards musicians of a certain background. It tries to circumvent the divide, and rather ask what is the mutual ground?” I ask whether he believes curiosity is enough? What of the “trait” and technique? Beger believes that teaching today should allow a glimpse into foreign influences, attempt a look at the wider picture, and should always follow the inherent interests of the student. “We cannot attempt to choose for these young people what is central and what is peripheral.” As an example, Beger calls to mind his own son, Stav, an up and coming maverick producer on the Israeli pop scene: “This was a child that was diagnosed as dyslexic, with ADHD, learning difficulties and what not. In my day no one would have cared, but today education attempts to embrace the difference.” But, as Beger discloses, it was actually Stav himself that managed to steer himself in the right direction. Seeing there weren’t as many “rights” and “wrongs” as when Beger himself was at a similar age, Stav was allowed to explore his potential, and find his own paths of learning – in his case, through the aid of computer-based music software. “Hence, to me, we shouldn’t be training the skill of these young people, but actually their intuition, and allow them to be outside the convention if that is where they find comfort and joy. For us there was one way to learn – “the” way. More and more today, you have young computer programmers, businessmen, etc. who have not received even one day of formal training. Yet, they follow their intrinsic instincts and desires, and find an alternative way to excel in their fields. They are not the product of schools, but of intuition, ambition, and will. So if this is the case with business and computers, why shouldn’t it be true for the arts as well?” So when it comes to his own students, Beger takes the “it’s not about the knowledge, but about what you do with it” approach. “I believe that music students should be trained in the spirit of improvisation.” To Beger, this gears towards a new skill that could potentially be of greater use in the long run than any particular technique or titbit of knowledge. As he sees it, this attitude would mainly teach students to relinquish any fear of finding the answers within, and with their personal process of research.

But it is virtually impossible to separate this supposed professional approach from Beger’s more holistic life philosophy: “ Mankind is heading towards a completely new direction. Look at China, who is currently building the world’s largest telescope in the hopes of finding traces of extra terrestrial life. Mankind is already beginning to understand that we are heading towards a qualitative change that will completely shift the way we communicate or maybe even think. This is probably why mankind has always wanted to share its own knowledge with potential forms of intelligence out there, and is continuously preparing for the influence of such foreign forces. Extra terrestrials brought us knowledge in the past, and this could potentially be the case yet again. This is now the new “race to the moon” – superpowers are no longer attempting to build stronger armies or procure stronger weapons, but are actually attempting to obtain more knowledge. Then why should we in our small practice not do the same?”

To Beger the first step to any type of learning begins with mindfulness, which to him begins with Veganism, or the refusal to hurt or exploit any other living being. “Boundaries and openness are not required merely as an artistic basis, but as a spiritual one. We know absolutely nothing, but if you are aware and mindful, you are able to stay awake.”… “Every person has the potential to create, but our history as a species and as individuals sends people on a track of negation and exclusion. Yet, we require expression, and our ability to embrace the unknown is a huge plus. If the door is open, grace is invited in. Extra terrestrials that learn of our dealings will not have the similar problem that we experience with boundaries. They will not bother themselves with the stories of mind mingled with consciousness and psychology that we tell ourselves. To them, we will seem unified, and our music, stemming from one unified sound experience and source – overtones. But the stories we tell ourselves are just that – stories. If we know so little about this existence, about the time we are given in this world and of what potentially awaits us thereafter, why not choose the story that allows us to be in the eternal?”

#Albert Beger #Experimental Israel #free improv #Saxophone #Ophir Ilzetzki

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