By Michael J. West | Published July 2026
You know how on Bob Ross’ TV show, The Joy of Painting, each episode begins with a scroll of the colors on Bob’s palette for today’s piece? Who’s Around’s list of track titles and collaborators functions a bit like that, but with musical traditions standing in for color. Israeli, Brazilian, Greek, Georgian, Spanish and Puerto Rican sounds all find a place on guitarist/bassist Tal Mashiach’s second album, often in intriguing combinations. Jazz, to continue the painting metaphor, is the base hue.
The aforementioned combinations, though, are never as straightforward as they seem. Four of the four players on the opening “Titu,” for example — Mashiach (on guitar), pianist Gadi Lehadi, drummer Ofri Nehemya and guest clarinetist Ahat Cohen — are all Israeli. (Electric bassist Panagiotis Andreou hails from Greece.) The music, however, is all Brazilian, a bright and breezy samba that Cohen’s clarinet charges with characteristic warmth. The lovely “Ajaruli” delivers on the Georgian flavors promised by the title, as well as the presence of saxophonist/vocalist Khondzi and percussionist Elibo Imerlishvili … but so does a polyrhythmic vein with roots in West Africa. “Lama Ken Lo,” titled in Hebrew and featuring Puerto Rican percussionist Victor Pablo, cycles through blues-rock, metric-shifting post-bop, Afro-Cuban montuno (plus flute from guest Itai Kriss, another Israeli expat) and balls-to-the-wall funk.
There’s a lot going on, in short. And if the description comes off as a little bit of an ethnomusicology lecture, well, the music can seem that way, too. Yet it’s also fun and intoxicating. Do you care about the provenance of “Baião Mediterráneo” when it’s so danceable, with such gorgeous piano and guitar solos? Are there really more pressing matters in “Paco” than its long-note, yearning-toned trumpet and cello lines (by Itamar Borochov and Maya Belsitzman, respectively)? You can know that it’s masterfully executed world fusion while being more concerned about its feast for the ears and feet.
