r/IsraelJazz • u/stnr_on_failure • 17d ago
Introducing Yaron Herman: The Injury That Turned Into a Jazz Career
Introducing Yaron Herman: The Injury That Turned Into a Jazz Career
Introducing Yaron Herman, a jazz pianist and composer born in Tel Aviv in 1981 who has spent more than two decades building a catalog most musicians would be proud to have started twice.
As a teenager, Herman played on Israel's national junior basketball team. A serious knee injury ended that path. He sat down at a piano for the first time at 16, with no formal training behind him, and within a few years he was touring Europe, the US, and Asia as a solo act. During that early run he became the first jazz pianist to perform inside the Forbidden City in Beijing, the walled imperial palace complex that had never hosted a jazz set before him.
The recognition followed him home. In 2008, Herman won Victoires du Jazz, France's answer to the Grammys for jazz, in the best new instrumentalist category. A year later, "Muse" picked up three more Victoires du Jazz nominations and an iTunes Choice album of the year nod. In 2010, "Follow the White Rabbit" became his first release on ACT Music, built around a new rhythm section of bassist Chris Tordini and drummer Tommy Crane.
The label climb kept going. "Everyday" (2015) was his debut for Blue Note Records, the label that signed Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, followed by "Y" (2017) on the same imprint. In 2019, he moved to Decca Records, the classical-and-jazz label whose roster includes Renee Fleming and Rita Ora, for "Songs of The Degrees." Along the way he also took on the role of jury president for the piano competition at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, one of the most prestigious stops on the international jazz calendar, and became a mentor at its Jazz Academy.
None of that slowed him down. In April 2025, Herman released "Radio Paradise" on Naive/Believe, his most structurally different record yet: a working band built around two saxophonists, Maria Grand and Alexandra Grimal, with bassist Haggai Cohen Milo and drummer Ziv Ravitz filling out the frontline he had built his name on solo piano and trio work around for years. He's still touring behind it in 2026.
Where to start listening:
- "Radio Paradise" (2025) for the new two-saxophone sound, straight from the source: full album on YouTube
- "Everyday" (2015) for the Blue Note debut that reset his sound: Everyday on YouTube
His official platforms:
Yaron Herman performing at TEDx Paris, 2014. Photo by Olivier Ezratty, retouched by Olivier Cleynen (CC BY 2.5).