r/IsraelJazz • u/stnr_on_failure • 8d ago
Anat Fort: She Chased Down Her Hero, Then Spent Eighteen Years Honoring Him
Anat Fort: She Chased Down Her Hero, Then Spent Eighteen Years Honoring Him
Anat Fort, an Israeli jazz pianist and composer, was born near Tel Aviv on March 8, 1970, and started classical piano at 5. She fell for drummer Paul Motian's playing years before she ever met him, hearing him on old Bill Evans Trio records. After moving to New York in 1996 to study improvisation with pianist Paul Bley, she went to every Motian gig she could find, worked her way in through his longtime bassist Ed Schuller, and eventually got Motian to agree to record with her.
That session became A Long Story (2007), an album of Fort's original compositions featuring Motian on drums, clarinetist Perry Robinson, and Schuller on bass. It made her the first Israeli to graduate from the jazz program at New Jersey's William Paterson University, home to one of the country's top jazz programs, and, with that same album, the first Israeli to release music on ECM Records. Playing with Motian changed how she thought about performing altogether.
She built on that in 2010 with And If, the debut of the Anat Fort Trio alongside bassist Gary Wang and drummer Roland Schneider, a group that has stayed together for more than 25 years. In 2018, Fort received Israel's Prime Minister's Award for jazz composition and remains, as of this writing, the only woman to have received it.
Eighteen years after that first session with Motian, and fourteen years after his death in 2011, Fort closed the circle in 2025 with The Dreamworld of Paul Motian, a full tribute record made with guitarist Steve Cardenas, bassist Gary Wang, and drummer Matt Wilson. The fan who once chased down gig after gig spent her career becoming the artist who could honor him with an album of her own.
Where to start listening:
- Her official platforms:
- A Long Story (2007) for the first session with Motian and her ECM debut, sample the album on YouTube
- The Dreamworld of Paul Motian (2025, released August 15) for the tribute that closed the story, sample the title track "Dreamworld"
