Philip Barrett

 

Last Friday at Zan's, inspired gig from the Ramallah Jazz Squad ( Philip Barrett, trumpet, Christoph Schult, piano, Mike Hendrickx, drums, Oystein Bru Frantzen, bass plus a sax player I can't find his name). A young Palestinian tells me the story of when, drunk and fearless, he decided to fulfill his dream of finally seeing the Sea, and up he went, no ID, nothing, on his way to Jaffa. The Gods  granted him his wish (in the form of a breach of security at a check point) but he almost had to pay the feared 12 days in an Israeli prison for a West-Banker found in the wrong side of the Green Line without a proper permit. He confesses to have been overwhelmed by the experience of being close to the Sea. Someone told me that it might be as high as 90% the figure of  West-Bankers that never saw the Mediterranean, although it's never more than 50 km away... For a native of Lisbon, used to the companionship of the ocean, that statistic is horrifying...