Tal Yahalom: A Guitarist's Mirror Image of Tradition
The Israeli guitarist and composer discusses his album 'Mirror Image,' which pairs his instrument equally with strings, woodwinds, and percussion to create chamber jazz, challenging the traditional guitar hero stereotype.
Today, the Spotlight shines On guitarist and composer Tal Yahalom.
Tal has built a reputation in New York's creative music scene for weaving post-bop, classical, and South American influences into a unique sound all his own. On his latest album, Mirror Image, Tal brings together a chamber quintet that puts his guitar in conversation with strings, woodwinds, and percussion, creating music that shifts between meditative reflection and striking exploration.
(The musical excerpts heard in the interview are from Tal Yahalom's album Mirror Image)
Dig Deeper
• Tal Yahalom's Mirror Image is out now on Adhyâropa Records. Purchase the album from Bandcamp or Qobuz and listen on your streaming platform of choice
• Tal Yahalom Quintet - “Tri-Tonal” (Live at The Jazz Gallery)
• KADAWA (Tal's ‘post-rock’ trio)
• Guillermo Klein: Live at the Village Vanguard
• Dan Weiss | drummer and composer
• Adam O'Farrill | trumpet
• David Leon | saxophone
• Ledah Finck | violinist
• Bergamot Quartet
• Rogerio Boccato | percussionist
• The Sixteenth Sheep reunion concert casts a magic spell
• Juan Quintero - Folclore
• Djavan | Brazilian singer-songwriter + guitarist
(This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.)
Lawrence Peryer: I am really intrigued by the album title. What's behind it? What is the mirror image that we're talking about here?
Tal Yahalom: That's a great question. An album title for me, or titles in general, are always kind of tricky because that's a thing that you meet before you actually meet the music. The title, the image—they have a lot of power, and I think that at the end of the day, "Mirror Image" came from kind of a combination of the nature of the music that ended up being this collection of material. And when I mean the nature, it's more about the sentiment or the state of mind that it put me in to write this music and play it live.
Something that is meditative and reflective in a lot of ways—a more contemplative place to play from compared to trying to go many places. I think a lot of the music, each composition has its own cyclical nature that maybe gives us more time to just exist in the piece. So I think that was definitely part of it.
And then it was also related to the actual techniques that ended up being really important to construct some of this music, where instead of thinking of different instrumental parts as completely independent or contrasting in some way, it was more about how can I distribute the same information, the same musical material, in inversions or opposites or shadows of one another. And then I was like, "Oh, I like that idea." When you look at yourself in the mirror, you see it with a different direction and opposites, and it just fits the whole thing in a really natural way, to me.
Lawrence: A lot of times when I speak with artists and they have a concept or a construct like that, it's an attempt to almost have a prompt or maybe like something to spur the creative process. Were you dealing with writer's block or anything? Or what was the genesis of that for you?
Tal: That's really interesting. So for me, it was actually the other way, and I feel like it's an interesting thing about how I've made albums so far that I actually want to, in the future, examine from the opposite way. But this collection—I named the album after the collection of songs had already materialized and I had the entire set list, so it wasn't necessarily a prompt to get me going. It was something technical and creative that was spiraling around in my psyche at the time, and also a lot of music that I was listening to then. It was more about like, "Okay, I have these pieces in hand already. What could I say about this to tie it together more and maybe paint a closer picture for the listener of what's the intention behind it," even if it's in a more mysterious way, hopefully.
So that was part of it. But I'm also very curious in the future to start from that departure point of being like, "Oh, whether I'm stuck or not, maybe I should take a very clear theme at the onset of writing music for an album," because so far it's been actually the opposite. Songs came out and they became a collection on their own, or I tied them together. But the opposite really interests me too.
Lawrence: I hear that a lot from, especially artists that work in various improvised realms, that having that construct present can be a guiding force for sure. I was going to get to this later, but since you started to allude to this—is this a bit of a manifestation? You talked about the cyclical nature or other aspects of the actual compositional structure. Is this where the Ravel influence is coming in?
Tal: Interesting. I never really thought of Ravel as a cyclical thing necessarily. I think the Ravel influence maybe comes in a lot more in the harmonic language that I'm bringing into a more jazz context. Although, maybe the piece that demonstrates it the most is the first one on the record, "Prelude." I feel that that sort of harmonic writing and color orchestration is very influenced by him. But the cyclical thing, I think it comes from a bunch of things. I think it comes first of all from being drawn to the idea of a core groove.
But not wanting to make it be a pattern that is super obvious or super repetitive across the whole thing, but still find some balance in like, "Okay, how does that core exist and give a driving force and a focus for the band and for the listener?" But I can jump in and out of it or put in a few quirks in it to make it sound a little bit more unusual in some ways.
I think someone who really contributed—that I honestly give a lot of credit for the music that came out for this record—is Guillermo Klein. He's an Argentinian pianist and composer, incredible person also, that I took a composition workshop with before I started writing for the band, basically. And in his music, I feel like he really achieves that. He has things that are rhythmically very complex and unusual, but he and his bandmates make it sound very natural and still grooving, and it's a lot of material that kind of loops around itself in interesting ways. Even if it's just rhythmically, it has that idea of the mirroring.
Lawrence: There's a couple of things in there I'd love to click on and go a little deeper.
Tal: Yeah.
Lawrence: One is, at the beginning of what you were just saying, you were talking about more than just the groove, and I think about that a lot with guitar-fronted ensembles, because if you're not careful, the band ends up giving you the groove and then it's just seven minutes of soloing, which I love and it's fun to listen to. But I could imagine it's easy to fall into. You'd have to be intentional to not go into that zone.
Tal: Are there certain contexts that you think of that in? Like, you know what I mean, certain instrumentations where that happens? Like are you talking about trios more or—
Lawrence: I think, yeah. Maybe trios. But the only thing is that you don't seem to be just about creating environments for the guitar to solo in. It seems to be important to you to leave space for the other players. Could you talk about that approach and that generosity? What makes that important to you?
Tal: That's beautiful. First of all, the word "generosity"—that means a lot to hear that if it comes across that way. And I agree with both things you said. In a way, I think that guitar has a little bit of a dangerous potential to be the shredding instrument above everything else. I think it comes from also other guitar traditions, not necessarily jazz guitar—I mean rock guitar. You know how people start. That's what it is. It's literally solos above anything else. And I think that for me—and that's why I asked you also about the formats, which is something I thought about a lot also—before this band, I got a little tired of the default bass-drums trio for guitar. Because I felt exactly what you were saying, that it's very hard to get away from the dynamic and also from a certain sonic thing that the band just sounds like a guitar trio, and it's amazing. It's a great format. But I wanted—because of how I play and a lot of solo practice that I put in—I think I wanted to give myself more opportunity to not just be that thing on top and to have more overall influence on how the band sounds, because I think that no matter in which context I play, I am really attentive and occupied with how the band sounds as a whole.
Lawrence: Yeah.
Tal: And my playing is going to come out of that. I am not just thinking about what is my part. I'm like, "Okay, what are we missing now? What can I support now? What can I add?" And I think it's just a natural thing about how I listen to music and maybe also how I communicate with people. I'm very sensitive to the energies and dynamics around me, and I think it's important for me for people to feel comfortable and have a place to express themselves. So maybe that's part of what you were saying in your second question. It's a combo of those two things. The one thing is wanting to play more creatively and not be subject to "I'm just a guitarist on top of everything," but I could be a little texture, I could be blending with this and this instrument and so on. But also enjoying the band sound and enjoying taking a step back for other people to do their thing. And I love being in a supporting role. So I think it comes also from that, and I don't really feel that if I take that supporting role, it takes anything away from what I'm doing.
I wrote and arranged the music. That's already plenty. I picked the people. I created a lot of this, so why do I also have to be on top of the music all the time? You know what I mean?
Lawrence: Yeah. That comes from a certain confidence. What's the largest ensemble you've been part of?
Tal: I can definitely think of a sextet that I've been playing with recently, led by two New York friends, Adam O'Farrill and David Leon. It's a really cool group—two horns, two guitars, and two percussionists. So it's like a double trio concept: two trios of percussion, guitar, and horn. I've had some maybe one-off gigs with big bands or in high school I was playing in a big band, but there wasn't really a lot of room for getting out of "what's the part?" The part was very traditional. The sextet would be the more regular one.
Lawrence: What do you get from that? The double trio thing is really interesting to me. Everybody keeping a lane for themselves as well as the sensitivity to everybody else. What's that experience like?
Tal: Oh man, that band is a trip also because of the way that David and Adam write for it. It's very cool because the whole concept is that there could be many different sections or combos within that thing. So sometimes the guitars are literally playing in unison, just doubling a bass line. There are a lot of very cool writing where we are playing really thick, dense clusters that you just could not do with one guitar. So that's the beauty of having two guitars that are playing all in minor and major seconds, stacked on top of each other. It's a really crazy effect.
But at the same time, there's also a very cool space to literally have two trios playing two different things at the same time. So sometimes you have to shift your focus between, "Oh, I'm a guitar section," but now I'm also my own band within the band. Now I'm communicating more with this drummer and this horn player while they do something else. And that band is really rhythmically and conceptually demanding, but all of those people take a huge responsibility to hold onto it. So it's been really fun to check it out.
Lawrence: Tell me about the other end of that extreme. I'm particularly interested about the duo work on the record. "Tri-Tonal" is the piece that I'm referring to for listeners. Tell me a little bit about that musical conversation. There's a lot fewer places to hide in that environment.
Tal: Yes, for sure. So in "Tri-Tonal," it's a very good example because in the solo section, I start right away—just guitar and percussion—and it is for sure a very vulnerable moment in the show and also in the recording. It was hard to get a take of it. We had to work a lot on that form because it's very tricky.
But you know what's interesting? When you take things out, when it's just guitar and percussion, there's almost less pressure to always be playing lines and this and that. I can give myself almost more breaks or more variety by just remembering that it's okay if I just accompany for myself a little bit just with some bass notes, and then I go into a line, and now I can have just a few chords. So in a way you are playing with more elements, but each of them can be a bit more simple. When I play solo, I think about it in exactly the same way. You are holding onto a lot of dimensions at the same time—the groove, the harmony, the bass, the melody—but you can also play much more simple, concise things because you have these conversations between all these different elements and different sounds. And in that place, I think it was a cool place to just be like, "Okay, we're going to let it loose," and I can portray this harmony and syncopate over this form in a way that I wouldn't be able to if it was with another instrument.
Lawrence: Yeah. There's a very lovely delicacy in that as well. You were saying at the beginning of your response that you could sit out a little bit and just color or drop in, and it's a very beautiful effect.
Tal: Yeah. Thanks. I really think that duo—I mean there aren't a lot of duo moments in the record, but the duo format in general is something I really love and appreciate because of how vulnerable and open it is. And I think that the more a situation has room for every decision to have a bigger effect on the music, I usually enjoy it more. That's kind of my tendency.
Lawrence: It's interesting. I love it because you get to challenge the image of the guitar slinger.
Tal: Yes. I think you are super onto one of my important missions in some way.
Lawrence: Oh, that's interesting. For real?
Tal: Yeah.
Lawrence: Well, there was something I wanted to read to you. You know, I was going through your biography and some stuff on your website and some other things written about you. There's a great quote here. In your biography, you're described as "weaving a wide spectrum of aesthetic elements into a distinct musical language."
Tal: Hmm.
Lawrence: Can you think about aesthetic elements? Do you—outside of being really good marketing copy—is that, could you identify the elements that you think are essential to your musical identity or to your sound? Do you have a self-image that way?
Tal: That's a great question. I've never been asked to define it this way, but there are a lot of things that come to mind. First of all, I would say that—speaking of David Leon, who led that band that I mentioned and is also on the quintet record as a sax player—we had a lot of the time this conversation around versatility versus identity or something like that. Basically, for a lot of people, it's much easier to understand who you are when you are just doing one thing. You're focused on one thing and then they think that they can say, "Oh, this is this person's identity." But I feel that both of us are very versatile, curious musicians around a lot of fields, and sometimes it's really interesting and also challenging to think about, "Wait, what are all these elements boiling down to in the end?" When people look at me from the outside, can they say, "Oh, Tal does this and he sounds like this," and is it even important? You know what I mean? I don't really think it's our jobs as musicians—maybe more as marketing people, but not as musicians and artists. We don't need to put boxes or words or understand everything about who we are, and I think that's okay and something we have to live with. You know, that's one thing I'll say, but when it comes to the technical question, I think when I meant that is—for example, I think a lot of people ask me do I have classical training when they hear me, and I do to some capacity. I've taken classical lessons, but maybe like ten in my life. But I think that something about my sound and my draw to certain details in playing, in expression and arranging, really comes from the classical world and studying different guitar repertoire, just listening to certain music. So for example, I think that's a side of me that comes across even when I play jazz or my own music. So that's definitely there.
Then there are sides that are very oriented towards grooves from different places. And recently, for example, it's been grooves from South America, Brazil, Argentina—different things I've been learning. So I know in my recent writing that started to come out. And I know that also in my playing, that kind of rhythmic intensity is coming out as well. But then the way, for example, that I think about improvisation and how I interpret harmony is a lot more from the jazz world. It's completely from there—how when I see a set of chord changes, how would I interpret that melodically, harmonically. So it's a combo of all these things, and I just think my curiosity tends to pull me in many different directions. So it felt like a true statement as far as I can go.
Lawrence: It's interesting though that your comment about how people ask you if you come from a classical tradition or classical training, and then you also mentioned the affinity for South American music, Brazilian music, because to me, as an uneducated and not formally musically educated listener, I hear those commonalities in the clarity of tone and just the articulation. When you asked me to think of guitar in a Brazilian context, that's something that stands out for me—it's very similar to what I hear in say John Williams or something like that, just that ability to—everything is very clean.
Tal: Mm-hmm.
Lawrence: Not a lot of slurring and—
Tal: Yeah. I definitely think that the touch and the tone is very important for me. And also this is the first band where I play both nylon string and electric. So just to have the opportunity to create an environment for that side of me for the nylon, and to have space for that to really resonate and be at the core of the band—that's the instrument that exists both in the classical and the Brazilian tradition. So in a way—
Lawrence: Yeah. Tell me about strings. I mean, I want to leave it an open-ended question actually. I want you to just tell me about strings. (laughter) I don't mean guitar strings.
Tal: So this, the string family. I don't find guitar strings interesting actually, but strings I find very interesting, man. I don't know—for example, at this point of my life, when I hear a nylon string guitar before I get to the other strings, there's something that speaks to me on a core level. It doesn't even matter which tradition it comes from. If I hear a good nylon string sound, I immediately connect to it. Something is there. There's something primal about it.
Lawrence: I agree. Very intense.
Tal: I also feel that way and I don't know if it's because it's the first instrument I picked up or whatever, but yes, it's very primal in the best way—close to our nature or something. I don't really know. And with strings, I feel it's kind of a similar thing, although I was maybe exposed to it at a later age, but the sound of a string section, a string quartet—I think it's something that I was always very mesmerized by. It's like it could be so many different things. It could be really mysterious. It could be really lush, it could be soft. It could be really intense. It could have so many timbres. It's just a super rich universe.
It was just a really interesting thought to be like, "How do I communicate with something like that?" On my instrumental level, how do I blend with those kind of timbres? So I had to surround myself with that to see. And I think that for some reason, for example, in jazz it's a lot more common to have a horn section than a string section. But for some reason, something about surrounding myself with the density and the richness of horns and the way that that comes across—it was never something that came to my mind. I think it was something that would overwhelm my sound. I would become a secondary thing if I had a horn section, but I think in a string section—maybe because I can also emulate some of these sounds, at least, at least pitch-wise I can get closer to in some way.
You can hear it on "KIM" on the record, where we all tried to kind of mimic that string pit sound. So I think it was something timbrally that I really wanted to explore and see—how do my strings that are not considered part of the string family in the classical world, how do they fit with actual strings? And how can I use them in a context where it's a bit more explorative and versatile than just backgrounds, just pads, which I feel like you could easily fall into in a jazz context especially.
Lawrence: Yeah. For atmospheric.
Tal: Yeah, exactly.
Lawrence: What's the compositional process like? Are you writing full arrangements? What do you present the string players when they show up for the session?
Tal: Basically the process of all these compositions usually have been the core of the composition itself—all the musical material, melody, harmony, form—was already in some capacity and then immediately towards the orchestration. So I wrote those two things. It depends on the piece. A lot of the times it would be a very specific part and they would just read it through, and maybe there would be some liberties that we would talk about in rehearsal of how we can create variation, whether it's timbre, articulation, or dynamics or different things, pacing that they can express themselves in, even in the written part.
But I was also specifically looking for string players—and this is still a work in progress for all of us, I think, in this band—that can read chord changes and can interpret them without me giving them a part. That will be a really nice aspiration of mine for this band in the future, to be able to teach them maybe a core groove or a core aesthetic of the section, but then just give them the harmonic framework and be like, "Okay, the cello, you have the bass part—go for it. You're going to improvise it now. And we're soloing over this." And Ledah Finck, who plays violin in the band, she's amazing because she can do all that. She can literally read through chord changes and improvise and read the hell out of any written material that I bring. So I think it was also a focus in who is going to be part of this that can actually execute all those things. And it's very hard to find.
Lawrence: I was going to ask you that. If the stereotype or the cliché was true in that a lot of the players from the more formal classical training and background—I mean, I've had artists tell me before they moved on to jazz or improvisational work in their classical training, they were discouraged from improvising and from vamping. It was like, the composer told you what to do, so please do that.
Tal: Please respect the mastermind of the composer, conductor, whatever. I'm sure that that exists in some capacity. I've never studied classical in an academic setting. I only know it from colleagues, but the people on the record, like Ledah and Irene—Ledah in particular comes from a background of many different things: Appalachian music and contemporary classical, and also studies gypsy jazz. So I knew that going in. We met through a band that was based on free improvisation. So it was very clear. Irene Han, who was also on the record and a member of Leaders Quartet, Bergamot Quartet, she also comes from a very versatile background and definitely open to that and definitely learned a lot about it during the making of the record and the rehearsals.
But I think that I could probably, for this band, I couldn't really work with people who just come from the classical background because I need them to do more. I need the cellist to be able to support me in a rhythm section type of way. Sometimes the cello would have the bass role, so if you have no understanding of what that would mean stylistically or not open to learning about it, then it's just not going to be the right fit.
Lawrence: It seems like in my very unscientific study from talking to artists, it seems like in the last 30 years or so, give or take, depending on the region or the school, that as the conservatories have opened up more to having jazz programs or improvisational programs, composition that—what you're talking about is becoming a bit more common or even the study of folk traditions or like you mentioned Appalachian music. And so hopefully a lot of that is just an artifact of a different time and place.
Tal: Yes, I hope so too. And even a good example is at the New School where I went for a jazz degree—now they've merged all of the schools into one building and they have more common lessons, I think, between the departments, between Mannes, the classical department and the jazz school. So the jazz people now can be like, "Oh, there's a string quartet right here. Maybe I will learn how to write for strings." So that's a good thing I think to be doing as a whole, to not separate these things. We're making music and it's cool to focus on the things you need for your professional skills, let's say, but creatively, it's great to be open and be around people that do all these different things, and especially in New York. That's why people are here or that's why I'm here at least.
Lawrence: Tell me a little more about your formal education. I know there's the education in the classroom, but there's also the education on the bandstand. I'm curious a little bit just for this part of the conversation—tell me about your formal training. When did it start? What were the iterations of it?
Tal: So I picked up the guitar when I was 12, and it was a combination in the beginning, looking for the right teachers for a while. I ended up finding some teachers that at first taught me rock and later on there were some amazing people that were very much into jazz and got me into people like Pat Metheny or John Scofield and stuff like that, Julian Lage, Kurt Rosenwinkel. So they exposed me to a lot of these things. But what really got me into jazz was a teacher in high school that I had that started the jazz combo and he knew my playing from the normal combo and kind of lured me into that. And he was like, "No, I think, Tal, you would really enjoy this." I was like, "Okay, okay." And I really fell in love with it and he burned CDs for me and really educated me in this way. His name is Shaha Galina. He's an amazing guy, saxophone player.
And then in high school, I was also in the music department in a school in the city. I learned ear training, history, ensembles, jazz—a bunch of things. Also some classical repertoire as far as listening, at least. My big, let's say, step into the jazz education world and the jazz scene in Israel was for college, and that was also the college that enabled me to come here to New York. I went to the Israeli Conservatory of Music in Tel Aviv, a program called Streicheln that was founded by amazing musicians who used to live in New York and then moved back and brought that knowledge to a really cool education system there. So I spent three years there. I finished my bachelor's at the New School for Jazz. I did my last two years over there. And all of this time I had private teachers, mostly guitarists.
But then in the New School, what was actually very cool is if you test out of proficiency—basically you prove that you know your instrument well enough—you can ask to learn from anyone in town, which is very cool. So I took some lessons with drummer Dan Weiss and saxophone players Tony Malaby and Bill McHenry, so it was very cool in that way. And ever since I've been out of school, out of the formal environment, I guess.
Lawrence: I have a low-level obsession with Dan Weiss. (laughter) Tell me about learning from him as a guitar player. And I'll give you one little bit of context. The first time I saw him play live, he was actually backing a guitar player. He was in Rez Abbasi's band. I remember just thinking, "Man, this guy is a monster on drums." He's phenomenal. What was the pedagogy like with him?
Tal: Man, he's an unbelievably inspiring musician and person. I think his dedication to practice and the instrument, but way more than that, I think his dedication to finding a personal voice on drums and following his curiosity is what really attracted me to him. So I'll tell you about what we learned and then also about playing with him after our lessons.
We did a lot of rhythmic things. We basically took a lot of Indian music and tabla concepts that he was working on and tried to apply them. He basically taught me some phrases or compositional approaches to phrases that they have in that sort of tradition—phrases that, for example, kind of shrink and expand in length and then land in a very cool way for the resolution. So it was a lot of that and feeling different rhythmic things against rhythmic things, just developing that independence and tolerance, which was great. And then just a bunch of playing together. Honestly, it was just two or three lessons. But what was nice after is that I called him for several trio gigs that I've done over the years.
And if I'm honest, I was terrified before each and every one of them because he's—his intensity could kick your ass. (laughter) Of course I was ready to lose the beat and lose the form at any moment. And I mean this in a very good way. I think he's just someone who every time he plays, he pushes the envelope. He doesn't settle for just doing the thing, whatever it is. He's pushing himself. He's pushing others and he's really going for what he's hearing in the moment, even if it's very risky and even if it's unconventional. For example, one of the things that I think are maybe underrated about him is his orchestration. Sometimes he would do things with the bass drum or ways that he would choose to finish phrases or highlight different things. He would do it on very different sets and parts of the drums and the cymbals than other drummers would. And it creates a very interesting sonic and dramatic effect.
And I think playing with that, in addition to all the amazing groove and really beautiful rhythmic things he is bringing—it's always been an amazing learning experience and every time we play together, I feel like, "Okay, I am getting more comfortable and we get to actually play with one another." It's not like I'm just holding on for dear life. It's beautiful.
Lawrence: That sounds beautiful. Tell me a little bit about how does your time in Israel relate to your approach in terms of composition, maybe, or certainly improvisation. I'm curious, is there a cultural dimension to your improvisation?
Tal: Man, that's something—I mean, the connection generally to my roots in Israel and how that comes into play musically is something I'm always asking myself in some ways. First of all, you know, I would say that that college and a lot of venues that I played at in Israel when I was growing up and in that college time, they meant a lot to me as an environment to really bring my sound out there and experiment with new bands, compositions—the first compositions of mine that were performed were performed in those venues in Tel Aviv, like a place called Beit Haamudim that was super significant. They booked my trio many, many times when I was 19. It allowed me to have a lab for those kind of situations. So that was huge in terms of the confidence it gave me or just the opportunity to explore my own compositions in front of people.
When it comes to how the culture affects my improvisation or composition, it's very hard for me to say. I would say that a lot of Israeli music—and recently I've been going back to, actually, a children's album that is very famous in Israel. It's called Ha'Keves Ha'shisha Asar. It's like the 16th sheep, like when you count sheep at night to fall asleep. That's cute.
And it's very good. And you know, you're like, "Oh, a children's album. What the hell?" It's the most amazing musicians who've gathered to make that album. And the songs are brilliant and the compositions are brilliant and the melodies are unorthodox. There's a very high level of lyricism, I think, and harmonic complexity in a lot of Israeli songwriters, especially. A few that come to mind are Yoni Rechter and Matti Caspi that have both jazz and Brazilian influence, and they brought that world into, I think, Israeli popular music. So I think that sense of maybe melody and lyricism is something that came to me maybe through that music. Again, I don't think it's something super conscious.
And I would also say that there are sides of Israeli music that I definitely don't connect to in terms of the aesthetic, and it's never really been part of my own nature. Recently I've been connecting, for example, with my Argentinian side—my grandfather was born in Argentina and all of a sudden I'm like, "Oh, that's interesting because I do have sides that naturally gravitate towards that," and I'm sure that that's because of that family relation and the culture that he brought into my life. So Israeli society is very diverse. People came from everywhere. It's very hard to pinpoint what is the Israeli sound, you know what I mean?
Lawrence: That's very interesting. I hadn't thought about that being, you know, being the ignorant American. I hadn't thought longer than 10 years ago. But yeah, it's fascinating. People came from all around and refracted all that back out. That's fascinating.
Tal: Yeah, exactly. Even when people ask me like, "Oh, what do you usually eat for Shabbat dinner in Israel?" And I'm like, it really depends on which household. It could be so broad. And it's the same musically. So yeah, I love that. It's very interesting.
Lawrence: Just to bounce around a little bit, when you said you picked up the guitar at age 12, why? You know, what were you into? What—of all the musical instruments you could have gravitated towards, what were you listening to and what caused you to reach for the guitar?
Tal: Actually, I think it was more of a social thing than a musical thing. I had two really good friends in the grade above me that started playing maybe a year or two before me, and they were always hanging out between classes or just at school together, writing songs, playing popular rock songs, pop songs from Israel and The Beatles or stuff like that. And it just seemed like a beautiful thing to be concentrated on—having that environment to be together, doing something together. And also they looked pretty cool doing it. (laughter) So I think it was also a very boyish thing of like, "Oh yeah, it's cool. I just want to do that and hopefully I get to connect with more people and get some girls to look at me or something." So it was definitely just that in the beginning and maybe the guitar—in its nature, there's a reason why it's around the campfire. That's an instrument that you can just pull out anywhere, and it already invites that setting of like, "Okay, we're about to make music together." It's very portable—nylon string guitar, acoustic. You can play it acoustically and you could do it anywhere. So I think that was also probably part of the reason. And you can portray a song—it's not a horn, for example. You know, you can play the harmony of a song and sing to it. So I guess that was a subconscious thing that drew me into it.
Lawrence: Do you have any level of proficiency or interest on any other string instruments?
Tal: Well I can say electric bass but it wouldn't be something too crazy, you know? But at some point I would be definitely curious. I also really think that if I would buy a cello, I would definitely be really into that.
Lawrence: Cello is fascinating. That rich low—oh man. The thrill of it.
Tal: It has the range of every instrument. It feels like it could do whatever it wants and it has this depth, like you said. So yeah, that maybe could be an interesting thing. And also for recording at some point it could be cool to pick up a few other string instruments, but I'm very—when I commit to something, I feel like I'm happy to live in that universe, you know? So also in terms of guitars, a lot of guitarists have I don't know, 10 guitars, 12 guitars. I have three guitars—one nylon, one semi-hollow, one electric. For now. I'm totally cool with it. I'm very curious about other types of guitars I could get, but I somehow just get connected to the instruments, and that's what it is. I don't know.
Lawrence: That's so interesting. I was about to ask you about your—if you were a gearhead, what are you into other than guitars? Do you have pedals? Do you have amps? What's your rig, if you don't mind me going there?
Tal: For sure. Amp-wise, I have a very small amp at home that I just use for practicing, and because in New York, most venues have really good amps, I didn't really feel the need to invest in something crazy just to play at home. It's something I want to invest in—a nice tube amp for recording for the future. But pedals, for example—I got into it really late because I think I was just like, "No, I just like the sound of the guitar. I don't need this bullshit or something." And it took me a long time, maybe from the fear of it taking over too much of the sound of the guitar of my practice. I think it took me a while to buy my first pedal and understand why I even want to be involved in that.
But the more I did it, it came from this curiosity of, "Okay, I'm hearing a sound and I know that there is no way to create it just with the instrument." For example, a volume pedal is one of the most important things in my setup because once you hit a note on guitar, that's it. The decay starts and it is what it is, but you can't really fade into a note the way a human voice or a horn would. And I think with the volume pedal, it became a huge part of my expression, that sort of thing of like, I can control the entire envelope and character of a note. And for example, that led me to another really cool texture when I bought something that's called a freeze pedal, that it's like a sustained pedal. You play something, you press it and it just sustains a chord, for example. So now I know that I can use the combination of those two to, let's say, do a volume swell into a chord so it fades in and then I freeze that chord and then I can play over that with different volume expressions also, so it gives a lot more human and dynamic characteristic to it.
In other bands like a trio I have called KADAWA that is more like a post-rock type of thing, definitely I have an overdrive pedal and I use delay in much more heavy ways. I also use a loop station to create some live looping for grooves or more ambience. I have a pitch shifting pedal, so sometimes it'll be an octave lower or higher. It'll be something much more gnarly, maybe also using minor seconds to create clusters.
Lawrence: Oh, so you can add harmonics?
Tal: Yeah, you can choose between any interval, pretty much. You can choose an octave, different types of seconds, thirds, perfect fourth, perfect fifth. So it's really cool. But it gets the guitar into a bit more of an electronic sound, that particular pedal. So I use it hopefully when it's the right moment for those things.
Lawrence: Listen, before I let you go, I wanted to ask you sort of a slightly side question, which is—after we get off the call and you go about the rest of your day, what's the next music you're going to listen to?
Tal: Ooh, recently I've been really into this Argentinian songwriter Juan Quintero, and I've been obsessed with some of his songs from a record called Folklore. So I might go listen to that again when I listen to things. It happens many, many times, just to get the characteristics of it—also analytically, but also just to connect with it emotionally. But I'm not sure. I've been very much into him, very much into Djavan, Brazilian guitarist and songwriter too. I don't know. It's always a very big rotation of things.
Lawrence: You like guitarists though, huh? You listen to guitarists?
Tal: Yes. I listened to a lot of guitarists recently. That's true. I had a phase where it was more pianists for a very long time. But now I think because of this obsession with South American music and the nylon in that context, anyone who does their own take on it and definitely rhythmically, and in terms of strumming patterns—those musicians have a lot going on that I think I want to capture also in my playing.
Tal Yahalom
Guitarist / Composer
Tal Yahalom is an award-winning guitarist, composer and bandleader based in Brooklyn, New York since 2014.
In his music he seeks to weave a wide spectrum of aesthetic elements into a distinct musical language - exploring the worlds of post-bop, alternative-rock, impressionistic classical music, and various South American guitar traditions.
Described as “among the most uniquely gifted guitarists on the NYC improv scene” (NYC Jazz Record) and “one of the most impressive jazz players of his generation” (Bill Kirchner), he is committed to
creating engaging storytelling, thoughtful interplay, and unique sonic environments that go beyond the traditional functions of the guitar.
Yahalom performed as a semifinalist at the 2019 Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz International Guitar Competition, earned 1st place at the 2015 Detroit Jazz Festival National Guitar Competition, 3rd place at the 2016 Montreux Jazz Festival International Guitar Competition, and received an AICF scholarship award of excellence in 2014-2015.
As a leader, he performs regularly with various solo programs, different trio configurations (which featured Dan Weiss, Caroline Davis, Rogerio Boccato and Tom Rainey) and a chamber-jazz quintet set to release its debut album March 21st, 2025 on Adhyâropa Records.
Tal released ‘Solo Standards’ in June 2023 - an ambitious and creative take on classic jazz repertoire, arranged to showcase the guitar as a multi-dimensional instrument that holds several roles simultaneously through innovative techniques and textures.
Additionally,…
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