Yves Touati, the Cherry Band and the Clanks of Marseille

Yves Touati, born in 1951 and died in 2009, was a composer, lyricist, singer, and music researcher. He was a jazz-rock composer, songs, and film music, both Israeli and foreign. In addition, he researched and documented church music and released six albums and a film on the subject. He also wrote lyrics for songs in French, and the article includes a quality piece of prose that illustrates his writing skills. He is especially known to Israelis thanks to the progressive rock band he founded, “Duvdevan,” and his legendary piece “Ben Gurion Airport.”

The band created a sensation. The audience went wild. The fans followed them from show to show and waited for the record. Shattered seats, uprooted benches, the audience's screams, the band had been operating for barely a year but had made waves. "The cherry that came out of the bag, uncorked me and turned the world upside down."

Yves was born in the city of Oujda, Morocco and, after the death of his father, came with his family to Marseille. At the end of high school, Lycée Marcel Pagnol, and the beginning of university, where he spent only a year, Yves founded the troupe “Troubadour” in Marseille, whose performances were a success among the young people of the city and the region. In 1971, the troupe went to Paris and gave the same performances.

In 1972, a year before he left for Israel, he recorded with the band Magma A record he composed with the help of Teddy Lasri Under the label Futura RecordsIt should be noted that Eve was not a member of the Magma band that was operating at that time. Reach out to singers from abroad For interesting collaborations. The record was not released but there is a rumor circulating that the recordings were hidden and still exist. Thanks to Gal Gitterman for letting me know about this strange episode. In the photo he sent to the Facebook group Progistan – Progistan See album number five in the Red series under the name of Yves Tuati:

In 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, he volunteered to help Israel, met his first great love, Daniel, and settled with her in Tel Aviv. After separating from his partner, he settled in Ein Kerem and the musical meetings took their toll.

In Jerusalem, Yves started out as a news anchor in the French department of Kol Yisrael. He was a walker, a tall, handsome guy, with a small briefcase, speaking Hebrew with a French accent that could be cut with a knife. Orly Morag introduced him to Menachem Granit: “Listen, there’s a guy in the French department, a musician.” Granit heard him play and went crazy, just went crazy.

Yves was happy when he sang a song he had written. He would sit down at the piano, play all sorts of melodies and it would suddenly catch everyone else's attention and they would join in and start playing them too. That's how the band was created and developed.

Her performances included a lot of improvisation and were electrifying and energetic. Her tour in the summer of 1980 with the late Gary Eckstein and the Stav band was unforgettable.

Ilan Getaniu and Shlomo Papirbelat wrote in the newspaper “Yediot Aharonot”, on June 23, 1980:

It was like being from another world. Hundreds of teenagers from the Tel Aviv area surrounded the stage of the “HaOhel” hall, raised their hands in the air, and chanted rhythmically: “Dov-d-ben, Dov-d-ben.”

The members of the Jerusalem rock band, who began their "End of School Season" performances last night, organized in collaboration with the youth supplement "Rosh Rosh," were also swept away by the audience's enthusiasm, as the chubby violinist Danny Tibrin, with his dizzying playing, swept away more and more fans, who gathered near the stage.

The ushers of the “tent” couldn’t believe their eyes. At first, they tried to get the dozens who filled the front aisles back to their seats, but finally gave up and left the hall to escape the immense sound that was emanating from the loudspeakers and the throats of the spectators.

In the hall, it was a real celebration. Real rock. Yves Touati, leader of the band “Duvdevan,” led his members to new heights with the music of “Ksah,” which amazed everyone. The Israeli audience is not accustomed to cheering for unfamiliar songs, but last night, at the “Rosh Rosh” performance, it was a different audience. An audience that surrendered to the music of “Duvdevan,” music with a “funk” rhythm, but, as the band leader said, “in terms of feeling, completely “blues.”

A few more tools that will enhance your vacation

🎓

Lectures on France

Join us on a fascinating virtual journey into French history and culture.

Find out more

????

Speak French

Discover Frantastique – the virtual curriculum that will upgrade your language.

Find out more

🧰

The traveler's toolbox

All the sites, discounts and services you need to plan a perfect, worry-free trip.

Find out more

💌

The guide to Paris as a gift

Subscribe to our newsletter and receive the comprehensive guide to the City of Lights directly to your email.

Find out more

Many remember the segment “Ben Gurion Airport” that was the theme song for the radio show “Good Things” with the late Miriam Imber. In 2009, a member of the band, Professor Arnon Palti, a momentary reunion after thirty years and an exciting new performance at the Tmuna Theater in Tel Aviv with the recording of an album. Present at all the events was the radio broadcaster and music program editor Menachem Granit, the good angel, who was enthusiastic about Yves from the beginning and accompanied him to the end. Yves, who was already very ill, listened to the radio broadcast of the performance in Paris and died two days later, on the second of Hashvan, October 24. He was 58 years old when he died. We can now hear the performance of “Ben Gurion Airport” in the new performance.

At the initiative of Professor Arnon Palti, without whom this would not have happened, the five members of the band reunited, starting in 2002, to record all of their classic pieces as a keepsake. The infrastructure was laid in two days of work, mostly live, but the repairs and renovations took another seven years.

During the recordings, two members fell ill, Eyal Tobenhoz, the guitarist, and Yiv Touati, the composer and keyboardist. The two, who later died, are, fortunately, immortalized on the record, but at the performance they were replaced by two young men, Asael Ben Tzruya and Uri Weinstock.

Thirty years have passed, the world has changed, events have happened, and the band, three original members who are no longer young and two, new blood, who replaced the driven, played the same pieces. The texts by Ehud Manor, which had become outdated, were changed by Professor Arnon Palti. The two songs, originally called “Maybe It’s Like This” and “Krab Tsevrim,” therefore appear in new guise.

The album was released that same year, 2009, in an old-new arrangement. The disc, which has an added value in the form of a booklet with anaglyphs, that is, three-dimensional drawings that are viewed through blue and red glasses, can be purchased from Professor Arnon Palti, through His Facebook.

Cherry, the name of the band, we said – thinking of the sensual, red, sweet, sour and delicious fruit, thinking of the elite IDF unit, but the intention was a certain, particularly high-quality type of… hashish. The cool song, originally called “Maybe That’s How It Is,” introduces and summarizes, in its new guise, the band. Under the image of the grandmother (a lover of cherry bowls) hides… the shachta. This is the song with lyrics by Ehud Manor (composition, of course, by Yves Tuati).

The song with the new lyrics by Professor Arnon Palti, a summary of the “Duvdevan” band, can be heard in an interview of the old-new ensemble with Menachem Granit, at the 24th minute of the first part. “The cherry that came out of the bag, opened the cork for me and turned the world upside down.” You can hear it a second time in an interview with Assaf Kaplan, at the 28th minute. Links at the end of the article. I highly recommend watching the interviews, which allow you to dive into the world of “Duvdevan.”

The comments I collected here and there in my online wanderings following the band show how important and high-quality the music of “Duvdevan” is, how much it is not a miracle, how much it is missing:

-This band is the best band that ever existed in Israel. It was the great love of my youth. We would go to their concerts, go crazy and go wild – they were simply huge. This band is my greatest love in the field of music of all time. To this day I keep a cassette with their recording from the G network and in order to listen to it I did not throw away the cassette tape. I want and am interested in buying the CD, where can I?

-Improves over time like a good wine, from the 80s vintage. What a rare harmony.

-Amazing piece. A true progressive masterpiece. So much fun discovering great music that was made in Israel before I was born. 

-At first I thought I was hearing something that was created these days… It's so up-to-date!

-Adir!!! Ein Kerem, today is a different world… not necessarily better. I miss the village in the 80s. What to do… Yves – may he be remembered – was not appreciated enough, without a doubt! Thanks for the piece! Thanks!

-How I missed hearing them!

-Israeli progressive rock on an international level.

Radio broadcaster Menachem Granit, a soulmate, like a brother

Duvdevan Band. Photo courtesy of Menachem Granit

Radio broadcaster Menachem Granit believed in Yves Tuati from the moment he met him. Yves' music shook his bones. I took the photo from Menachem Granit's Facebook and this is what he wrote about him in 2020:

Today, Yves Tuati could have celebrated his 69th birthday. He called me brother. Intellectual, philanderer, musician, composer, keyboardist, who conceived the band Duvdevan and composed its music. Israeli progressive rock, Ben Gurion Airport, Khamsin, Messiah, Round-robin battle, maybe it's like that. Ehud Manor wrote the words for several of the songs, a bond I tied.

Last week, Danny Tibrin passed away with the electric violin, Eyal Tobenhoz is gone, muscular dystrophy. Two are still alive, up to one hundred and twenty, Roni Holen on drums and Arnon Pelti – on bass. This is a historical photo of the Duvdevan band from the early 1980s, a few months before Tamira got them a recording contract. From the right: Arnon Pelti, the late Yves Toveti, Danny Tibrin, Roni Holen and the late Eyal Tobenhoz.

And Menachem Granit wrote:

In the late 1970s, the band Duvdevan was active in Jerusalem. An energetic rock band that swept Jerusalem and the entire country in the summer of 1980 with a series of electrifying performances. Its most prominent feature was the electric violinist Danny Tibrin. Their most famous piece was “Ben Gurion Airport,” which served as the theme song for Miriam Imber’s program “Good Things” on the 3rd network.

In those days, I was a young and energetic program editor at the C network. I believed in the band, encouraged, pushed and helped. Among other things, I organized a series of recordings at the YMCA studios in Jerusalem and even connected them with Ehud Manor (who wrote lyrics for several songs). A connection was also made with Tamira Yardeni, who managed to arrange a recording contract with the then CBS company.

The composer of the band's songs was Yves Touati, born in Morocco, who immigrated to Israel from France and played keyboards. In addition to Yves and Danny, the band included Roni Holen - drums, Eyal Tobenhoz - electric guitar (both from Jerusalem), Arnon Pelti from Haifa - bass. The band broke up before an album was recorded. Personal differences of opinion and egos that swelled unnecessarily. The years passed and everyone went their separate ways. Danny went to America and returned, began playing in Hasidic music bands. Arnon Pelti earned a doctorate in music and began teaching at the Rimon School. Roni Holen was involved in recordings, performances and teaching in Rimon.

Yves Tuati wrote music for local and foreign films, documented church singing in Jerusalem. With a great effort about eight years ago, the band members regrouped at the Rimon School of Music and recorded all of their classical pieces. I was there as an ear witness.

Yves Tuati returned to France, from where he immigrated to Israel, to Jerusalem, to Ein Kerem, which he loved so much. The cancer spread through his body. Through production and musical effort, Dr. Arnon Palti managed to improve and master the recordings. The process took a long time because the masters remained with Eyal and he was busy with physical survival. An album by the band Duvdevan will soon be released – 30 years late. Yoav Kutner heard it and was moved. So was I. On October 19, a performance by the band Duvdevan will take place at the Tmuna Theater, with two musicians replacing Yves Tuati and Eyal Tobenhoz. The performance will be dedicated to Yves and Eyal.

24.12.10

A little over a year has passed since Yves passed away. He used to call me brother. He was six months older than me. He was a true intellectual. He always knew with his sharp senses to discern the most fascinating happenings in the international cultural fields. He would send me to read books, watch films and listen to music that moved him. He was a McCarthyist and I was a Leninist…

In the good old days in Jerusalem, he voluntarily hosted a series of programs as part of the program “A Little Bit Different” – “The Junction of the Forgotten,” about musical heroes who had disappeared from the public eye. He hosted and Orly Morag hosted. They would sit together for hours on the wording of the dialogue. Orly knew how to translate his ideas into the language of Israeli radio, just as she knew how to write words to his melodies, just as she knew how to introduce me to this special and moving person.

The Duvdevan reunion show was a success. Everyone whose soul was tied to the winding career of this band came to the show. I broadcast live on the Gimel network, knowing that Yves could hear me via the Gimel network's website, from his hospital bed in Paris.

Two days after the show, I called him at the hospital, around 8 p.m. His son Rafael was sitting next to him.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

"excellent".

?

“Rafael and I sat here and listened to Duvdevan’s performance. We laughed and cried…”

I exchanged a few more impressions with Eve about the qualities of the playing and singing, and we agreed on various nuances.

I promised to come to Paris to visit him. That was Yves' last dialogue.

Two hours after our conversation, he passed away. Happy.

After the performance, there were further unsuccessful attempts to revive this reunion lineup.

I am sure that:

1. The entire process of Duvdevan's reunion, the album release, the performance and the live broadcast happened because Eve needed to receive a farewell gift before he left.

2. I performed the greatest mitzvah of my life, by managing to bring the sounds, the music that was the peak moment in Yves Tuati's work, to his ears and head before his passing.

Eve was buried in Jerusalem.

May he rest in peace!

And another photo of the Duvdevan band. Courtesy of Menachem Granit

From the moving phone conversation with Menachem Granit, France-Israel, I understood, between the lines, that Eve was envied because of his talents and charm. Eve was perfect. Or almost.

His partner and mother of their son, Anne, told me how sociable, warm and generous, and a lover of people he was. When he was researching church music, he invited a group of priests to their home in Ein Kerem, who came dressed in their black robes and crowned with their large crosses, to dine with him in fellowship.

I myself was amazed to hear in an interview with Menachem Granit (cited in the notes), conducted three days before Yves' death, how he emphasized at the last moment in his broken voice, barely speaking, how important it was to him that Ofir Toshe Gafle come to the reunion show in Tamuna. "The most important thing is that he come, he's like my brother, he's the greatest writer in the country right now." In the world of art and literature, where there is a lot of jealousy, diagnosed or successfully hidden, Yves behaved with natural nobility, and even in such dramatic circumstances. It's unbelievable what a big heart Yves Tovet had, simply unbelievable!

And here is what Ofir Tosha Gafla wrote about Eve:

I might add that my book 'The Day the Music Died' is dedicated to Yves following a courageous friendship that was forged between us against the backdrop of our shared love of culture and art, and that I spent a week with him shortly before he passed away, and that it was a rare experience that I will never forget.

A pang in the heart for the great loss, a contract with CBS is reached and the band breaks up at the same time. And after thirty years, the reunion show with the two young musicians remains a one-time event. A pang in the heart, mainly, for Yves' illness and death. Here is a song, not rock, in Arnon's romantic-chanson arrangement, "San Sebastian", a melancholic and nostalgic song, which speaks of the end of summer, the end of a day, a setting sun softly touching the sea, in a foreign city. San Sebastian, San Sebastian, between beaches and a river - a metaphor perhaps for life itself. But all these endings, which precede and herald the ultimate end, have a beauty, a pang, which is given new force by its reflection in the singer's (Yves) evening voice, in the harmony of the melody and the simplicity of the words. Blessed are the artists who are able to express and blessed are the viewers who are able to enjoy!

I was sent to Menachem Granit for the purpose of writing this article by Gerard Touati, Yves’ brother. I did not know Yves personally, but I heard, and still hear, a lot about him from Gerard. I got to know Gerard through our shared interest in the language of the Bible and the Hebrew language of today. The sounds of words, the sounds of music, everything connects. Art is intended, among other things, to comfort the mourners and to preserve the memory of the dead.

Brother Gerard Thoati, a traveler from Kalnak

On a well-known beach in Marseille, La Pointe Rouge, not far from the Bay of Sormio, which will be discussed shortly, Yves experienced a Proustian moment, in the company of his brother Gérard and his sister Sarah. The passage that immortalizes this moment, “The Seagulls of the Pointe Rouge” (Les mouettes de la Pointe Rouge), will serve as an opening to Gérard’s clank trips. I hope that my translation (the source is in the notes) does not offend Yves’s high-quality writing, whose poetic-philosophical quirks I initially admired in order to follow the stream of consciousness that leads her further and to ache with the pain of the development of the disease, which he views with a controlled and not without humor at the end:

The Seagulls of Pointe Rouge

My brother Gerard insisted on taking me to see the sea with our sister Sarah. It's almost eight o'clock but it's still hot on this Sunday in August in Marseille. The sea is calm and the sun, in a legendary sky, refuses to set.

Leaning on Gerard and Sarah's shoulders, I get out of the car to take a few steps across the parking lot to the beach. I don't know at that moment that these are my last steps and that starting the next day, I will slowly lose the ability to use my legs. Above us, an orchestra of seagulls reinforces the faded colors of summer with the echo of their laughter. I want to get closer to the water to dip my tired feet in it, but Gerard tells me that this is not possible because of the rocks.

The three of us sit on a small fence to observe the beautiful Mediterranean Sea and its fleet of sailboats, surfboards and ships of all kinds, in the distance. On the other side of the sea, our shared childhood in Morocco beckons us with a captivating wink from the beach of Saidia. I can't say why, but this particular moment has the taste of eternity. A defining moment. Maybe because I intuitively felt the end of a cycle in my fragmented life.

To our right, a few petanque players argue about the distance of one of the balls from the target ball, the cochonna, and I ask myself why this large wooden ball is called a cochonna. After a few moments of reflection, I decide that I can survive without knowing the answer. None of us initiates a conversation so as not to break the blue magic of these moments, when silence is worth much more than speech.

At the beginning of the tingling in my feet, two weeks ago, the doctors who have been trying to tame my tumors for the past four years attributed them to the side effects of my last chemotherapy, but my legs have become weaker and weaker, and it is at this very moment that I suspect that it is something more serious, and above all, more insidious, much more.

The disease first invited itself to my left lung four years ago. My voice had been dead for more than three weeks, but my lazy optimism had not yet responded until my friend Anat B. took the initiative and made an appointment for me with her cardiologist. After examining me at length, he decided to send me in turn to the pulmonology department of the Curie Institute, which is known throughout the world for diagnosing and especially treating cancer. In this department, I met Dr. Catherine D., my pulmonologist ever since.

After more than two months of X-rays, CT scans and MRIs, the doctors still couldn’t decide whether my lung tumor was cancerous or not. The decision was made to operate on me anyway to get a clearer picture. And so, in the pastoral setting of the Marie Lanlong Center, one beautiful day in July 2005, a surgeon with the build of a rugby player began to open my chest from mid-chest to mid-back. He then moved my ribs apart to access my left lung and remove the tumor, but unfortunately, he found that it was stuck to the aorta and therefore inoperable. He decided to take a sample for testing.

When I woke up, my cousin, Professor Robert B., a senior gastroenterologist, called me on the phone to tell me that he had bad news and good news for me. The bad news was, as mentioned, that I couldn't be operated on, and the good news was that the tumor was a large cell carcinoma, which means to those who aren't familiar with it that it can be treated. The small cells, it turns out, are real bastards!

Before I leave this scene, I would like to thank my cousin Robert, without whom this film would not have been born. Then came three months of combined radiotherapy and chemotherapy from September to December of that year. On a bright day in March 2006, Dr. Catherine B. announced to me with a broad smile the triumph of medicine over the vile beast.

But this one did not say its last word because it reappeared three years later, in early 2008, this time accompanied by a little brother in the brain who himself invited another little brother, nine months later, in the medulla oblongata. After this interlude, purely for medical reasons, I will return to the gulls of Pointe Rouge to reunite with Gerard and Sarah and gaze at my dying legs in the magnificent sunset.

An hour later we return to my mother’s apartment in the Park Fleury complex. We have been hiding my illness from her for four years and have no intention of revealing anything to her. Given her advanced age, ninety-three, it is out of the question to shock her like this. At 22:00 PM I call my cousin Rover, who tells me to come to the emergency room the next day because the symptoms I described cannot, according to him, be side effects of my recent chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

At 9:00 the next morning, Gerard accompanies me to the emergency room at Sainte-Marguerite Hospital. Walking is becoming increasingly difficult for me. I undergo various tests, including X-rays, a CT scan and an MRI, and then the doctor on duty arrives to give me the bad news: another tumor, this time in the spinal cord, at the level of the eleventh vertebra, which explains the progressive paralysis in my legs and pelvis. Being in a room with two beds, I see before my eyes various and strange people, coming and going, “people of inferior origin and great men of the country…”, a depressed musician who swallowed everything he found in his medicine cabinet and was saved at the last minute, a former mountain pilot who suffered a vasovagal attack or an old man from Marseille who looks like he’s stepped straight out of a Peñol movie.

Three days later, Gerard accompanies me on the TGV to Paris in a wheelchair. An ambulance takes us to the Curie Institute, where I will have to stay for several days, perhaps even several weeks. There, the paralysis will complete its conquest of the lower half of my body, and I repeatedly project to myself the film of my last trip to Marseille by the water, to the rhythm of the seagulls of the Pointe Rouge.

This short passage, somewhere between Proust and Duras, is a farewell story to life, life as a ship's journey at sea, I am a ship, from coast to coast, that's how the book of books already described it. A wandering voyage from childhood in Morocco until sunset, in a Mediterranean setting where seagulls breathe wind, laughter, and calm. How good Gerard did who insisted on bringing his brother, along with his sister, for a last walk on Pointe Rouge beach, near Clank-Sormio!

Gerard walks in the coves of Marseille and its surroundings, the calanques, while listening to music, imagining, dreaming, looking at the shapes of the rocks that sometimes resemble one another. These are moments of grace in which he establishes contact with his brother, who is in the other world, sailing in the infinite blue. In these videos, in which he plays Yves' melodies, Gerard also preserves the memory of his brother. We now watch a video documenting a trip to a calanque called La Calanque de Sormiou.

Gerard Thoati, a trip to Calanque Surmio

The Sormiou Bay is located in the 9th arrondissement of Marseille, in the Calanques National Park. The name Sormiou in Provençal means: the best spring, in French la meilleure source. It is a groundwater spring that fed two 14th-century wells that only dried up in the 20th century. The wells met the needs of the fishermen who settled there and of travelers.

In 1876, a loving couple bought the clank at auction as a dowry for their daughter Marie. In 1885, Marie married a count from an old Provençal noble family, a lieutenant governor, writer and poet. She renovated a mansion in Marseille, la Bastide de la Magalone, and lived there with her husband. In her literary salon, she entertained poets, writers and actors, including Frédéric Mistral and Anna de Noailles. But most of all, she loved to go to her cove, riding a horse, having a picnic there and praising it in songs. When I leave Provence "My, my heart is torn and remains in it," she wrote. She would have been pleased if she had known that she had gone down in history as "Countess Marie de Sormiou."

In 1894, the Count and Countess built a summer house in Kalan, “The Castle,” and seventeen other cabins next to it, which they rented out at a reasonable price to those interested. This is how the cabin culture that exists to this day developed. The Countess died in 1956 at the age of 91, and her descendants continue the tradition. “The Castle,” so called by the fishermen because it was the only house made of stone, became a popular restaurant, The Château de Sormiou, which is run by the descendants of the countess.

What is special about this video by Gerard, besides the landscapes, is the music that accompanies it, in two different styles: a melody by his brother Yves and a song by his sister Sarah. The selection of the clips in the video produced by Gerard symbolizes the union of the two brothers and sister, a courageous bond that has never been severed or damaged. It is a trip through the magnificent natural landscape of the Clans, freedom and happiness, for which the talents of the family members serve as a backdrop and glorify it.

In the first part of the video, a segment by Eve is heard, and in the second part, a song by Gerard and Eve's sister, the talented jazz singer, is heard. Sarah Eden (Sarah Eden), may you live a long life. Sarah Eden composes her own songs and writes the lyrics. The song played in the video, called “Look at me.” (Regarde-moi), included in the album “Night blue"(Blue Night).

In the song “Look at Me,” the speaker feels loneliness and coldness in her heart and asks for sympathy and warmth. In her velvety voice, which expresses a range of emotions, rising and falling unexpectedly, she seems to be turning to the rock in the shape of a human face, above the waves, which appears at the end of the video, according to, of course, Gerard’s “direction.” A human relief overlooking the coast, towards Cassis and the other coves, like an eternally attentive observer. Gerard was happy to discover it, film it, and reveal its location for the benefit of the traveling public.

And this is what Gerard wrote to me about the rock sculpture:

Regarding my video, there was a strange coincidence… I’m just an amateur, but chance led me to the rock statue… looking into the distance… which was linked to my sister’s words: Look at me. And in my head, it was the gaze of our brother who had gone to another world, looking at us, my sister, and me. My sister sang: Look at me.

This phenomenon of recognizing faces in a rock (or in a cloud, smoke, ink stains, etc.) is called Pareidolia, in French Pareidolie. The word originates from Greek and means “false appearance,” false in the sense of a creation of the imagination. The imagination could turn into madness-crazy, but not here, because the rock really resembles a person. Similar-imagination-image. All poetry is based on imagination and images, and nature competes in its creations with artists…

Sister Sarah Eden, composer, lyricist and jazz singer

In Sarah Eden's poem, "Look at Me," the artist, as we have seen, gives voice to a lonely woman, in search of companionship. Sarah Eden herself, in the reality of her life, is a woman surrounded, looked at, the opposite of the woman in the poem, with whom she nevertheless identifies, with the same ability of artists to step out of their skin to enter another place.

Sarah Eden releases albums, is currently working on a new album, and occasionally performs at the prestigious and renowned jazz club, Sunside Sunside, at number sixty rue des Lombards. This is a fragment from one of her concerts.

No matter how much attention you have, it will never provide complete protection against the blows of fate. The song she wrote, “Eve” (Yves), included in the album “Another place"(Ailleurs), as its name suggests, is entirely dedicated to the pain of separation and its paradoxes, expressed in transitions between third and second person. Here is my translation of the poem:

I still hear his voice, I will always be with you. He let go of my hand, left me on the road. Eve, on the other shore and I – drifting, oh Eve! Eve, what's happening to me, I'm cold, life without you, it's no longer the same, it's no longer the same.

Once upon a time there was a brother and a sister, together they were never afraid, always united, against winds and currents, no one on earth could separate them, branches of one tree and fingers of the same hand, brother and sister, how far apart!

Eve, on the other shore and I – drifting away, oh Eve! Eve, what's happening to me, I'm cold, life without you, it's not the same anymore, it's not the same anymore.

Listen here toA poem The singer's moving, balanced voice, which unexpectedly skips between the intervals of sounds, is tinged with its melancholy. A slow song in which every note, letter and word expresses a whole world. The song is structured as a dramatic story in two beats: a perfect fairy tale that ended with an order of expulsion from Eden.

It is important to note that the album Ailleurs Produced by Sarah Eden and the pianist Yaniv Tobenhoz And his trio, as a tribute to Yaniv's father, the late Eyal Tovanhoz, a member of "Duvdevan", was recorded and moxaed by Shelly Bar-On, the close associate of the late sound engineer Israel David and his successor. An album that is, in conclusion, a moving homage to Eyal Tobenhoz, Yaniv's father, and to Eyav Towati, Sarah's brother.

Eve Thuati and liturgical music

Yves would say, in his French accent: “I always walk two centimeters above the floor.” He did indeed tend to neglect the material aspects of life in favor of artistry and spirituality. Yves devoted his last years to researching and documenting church music, thinking that its origin was in the music of the Temple and thus to reaching the unknown beginning. In this context, he released with the sound engineer Israel David (Israël David) the late, his good friend, who passed away in 2011 in Tel Aviv, a series of Six albums.

Also, released with the director Emmanuel Shuraki (Emmanuel Chouraqui), A Long Life, a fifty-two-minute film about sacred music in Jerusalem, Musica sacra de la terra Sancta – France 2005.

legacy

Yves Touati's artistic legacy is, in summary, the immortal pieces of the Duvdevan band, the film music he composed (for films, for example, by Haim Tal and Danny Verta), and his extensive documentation of church music. But Yves was much more than that, a polyvalent artist, who did not receive the full appreciation he deserved.

Yves was not only a composer but also a lyricist. For example, he composed two songs that were intended for his little son Raphael, who was born in Israel on December 8, 1989. Raphael now lives, like his mother Anne, in the south of France. Yves offered the second song, “Little Man,” to the French singer Ig Opera who included it in his repertoire, but it is important to note that the author of the lyrics and the melody is Yves Tuati and only Yves Tuati. The speaker in the poetic poem is a man almost a hundred years old, who is about to die, and it can therefore be seen as a “will song.”

This is a “will song” not only because of the speaker’s age but also because of its content. The original words, in French, can be read HEREHere are my translations of them:

Little man, Father John said to the boy. I will soon be a hundred years old, you are not yet ten. I have seen so many ships sail and I will take the last one soon. I leave you my pen and all my drawings. Watch over the sea and its forests. We will meet in space, my child. On the planet of music in heaven. Learn the piano and the guitar. I only play the harmonica and all my life I have been angry that that is all I know how to play.

Little man, what I want to tell you is that time is very short and cursed be the man who burned the salt and the earth and defiled it with the blood of his brother. I leave you my tears and all my pain. Watch over the sea and its gardens. We will meet in space, my child. On the planet of music in heaven. Learn the piano and the guitar. I only play the harmonica and all my life I have been furious that that is all I know how to play.

Little man, before I leave, I will say that life is beautiful and blessed is the man who speaks on the wind and on the earth and who shares his bread like a brother. I leave you my dreams and all my songs. Watch over the sea and its gardens. We will meet in space, my child. On the planet of music in heaven. Learn the piano and the guitar. I only play the harmonica and all my life I have been angry that that is all I know how to play.

We'll end with Gerard's video, in memory of Yves, in which I learned that Yves' song, performed by Yves Opera, emerged from an earlier song Yves wrote for his son.

Comments

-Menachem Granit interviews the united “Duvdevan” band the day before the performance at the Tmuna Theater, with two young musicians, Asael and Uri, replacing Eyal, who was lying sick in Rosh HaAyin, and Yves, who was lying sick in Paris. Starting at the 17th minute, a little later, Yves Touati is on the phone, in a hospital in Paris, talking to his friends three days before his death. After him, his son Rafael speaks a little, at his bedside. After that, the two poetic songs are heard with the words of Arnon Palti instead of the old words of Ehud Manor. I highly recommend listening to the entire recording from beginning to end.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aikIGKNswKcTq59IQfAdxIZJOZjYAXAz/view?ts=68fcda8f

-Asaf Kaplan interviews the band in a similar situation, before the performance at the Tmuna Theater. Also a fascinating interview

-The Seagulls of Pointe Rouge, originally: Les mouettes de la Pointe Rouge

Mon frère Gérard insisted pour m'emmener voir la mer avec notre sœur Sarah. Il est bientôt huit heures mais il fait encore chaud ce premier jour d'auût à Marseille. La mer est calme et le soleil s'entête à refuse de décliner dans un ciel de légende.

Leaning on the shoulders of Sarah and Gérard, I descend from the car to make some steps in the parking lot au bord de l'eau. Je ne sais pas à cet instant que ce sont mes derniers pas et qu'à partir du lendemain, je vais perderment progressively l'usage de mes jambes

Au-dessus de nous, un orchestre de mouettes ravive dans l'echo de son rire les couleurs délavées de l'été. Je veux me rapprocher de l'eau pour y tremper mes pieds fatigués mais Gérard me dit que ce n'est pas possible à cause des rochers. On s'assoit tous les trois sur un petit mur pour contempler la belle Méditerranée et sa fleet de voiliers, planches à voile et autres paquebots dans le farintain. De l'autre côté de la mer, notre enfance commune Moroccan nous fait un charmant clin d'œil depuis la plage de Saïdia. Je ne saurais dire pourquoi mais cet instant précis a pour moi un goût d'éternité. Peut-être qu'intuitivement je pressens la fin d'un cycle de ma vie décousue, un moment hinge.

Sur notre droite, des joueurs de pétanque se disputent sur la distance d'une boule au cochonnet et je me demande pourquoi cette grosse bille de bois s'appelle cochonnet. After a few moments of reflection, I decided that I could survive without knowing the answer.

Aucun de nous trois ne prend l'initiative de parler afin de ne pas biser la magie bleue de ces instants où le silence est tellement plus éloquent. At the beginning of four millements in my feet, il ya quinze jours, the doctors who tried to apprivoiser mes tumors depuis quatre ans attribuaient ce phenomenon aux effets secondaires de ma dernière chemothérapie mais mes jambes sont devenues de plus en plus faibles et à cet précis je me doute bien qu'il agit quelque chose de plus grave et surtout de bien plus vicieux

La maladie s'est invitéte il ya tout juste quatre ans dans mon poumon gauche. Ma voix était épiente depuis plus de trois semaines mais mon optimism paresseux ne réagitai toujours pas quand mon amie Anat B prit l'initiative d'un rendez-vous chez son ORL. Celui ci, après m'avoir longuement examinée, décida de m'envoyer derechef au service de pneumologie de l'Institut Curie, mondialement connu pour le dépistage et surtout le treatment des cancers.

C'est là que je fis la connaissance du Docteur Catherine D, ma pneumologue depuis lors. Après plus de deux mois de radio, scanner et autres IRM, les médecins ne pouvoient toujours pas se pronouncer quant au caractère cancéreux ou pas de ma tumor au poumon. Ils prirent quand même la decision de me faire opérer pour y voir plus clair.

C'est dans le cadre idyllic du Center Marie Lannelongue qu'un jour magnifique de Juillet 2005, un chirurgien à la carrure de rugbyman entreprit de m'ouvrir le thorax du milieu de la poitrine au milieu du dos. Ceci étant fait, il écarta mes côtes afin d'accesser au poumon gauche pour enlever la tumeur mais là, manque de bol, il découvrevit que celle-ci était collée à l'aorte et donc inoperable. Il décida cependant d'en extraire un écontillon afin de l'analyser.

A mon réveil, mon cousin le Professeur Robert B, un grand patron en gastro, m'annonça au téléphone qu'il avait une mauvaise et une bonne nouvelle pour moi. La mauvaise, c'était donc l'inopérabilité et la bonne le fait que la tumeur était un carcinoma à grandes cellules, ce qui veut dire pour les non initiés quelle était soignable. Les petites cellules sont paraît-il de vraies salopes! Avant de quitter cette scène, je tiens à remercier ici mon cousin Robert sans qui ce film n'aurat jamais pu voir le jour.

Followed by three months of radiotherapy and chemotherapy coupled from September to December of the same year. Par une journée très claire de March 2006, le doctor Catherine B m'annonça avec un large sourire la victoire de la .médecine sur la bête immond

Mais celle-ci n'avait pas dit son dernier mot puisqu'elle réapparut trois ans plus tard, au début 2OO8, accompaniede cette fois ci d'un petit frère au cervelot qui lui-même invita neuf mois plus tard un autre petit frère au cervelet.

Après cette parenthèse purely médicale, je reviens aux mouettes de la Pointe Rouge pour retrouver Gérard et Sarah afin de contempler ce magnifique coucher de soleil sur mes jambes agonisantes. Nous retronns une heure plus tard à l'appartement de ma mère au Parc Fleuri.

Cela fait plus de quatre ans que nous lui cachons ma maladie et nous n'avons pas l'intention de lui révéler quoi que ce soit. Vu son âge avançe, quatre-vingt-treize ans, il est hors de question de lui imposer un tel choc.

A 22 heures, I call my cousin Robert who orders me to go to the emergency room tomorrow car d'après lui, the symptoms that I describe to him are ne peuvent pas être des effets secondaires de ma dernière chemo ou de my dernière radio chirurgie au cerveau et cerevelet.

A neuf heures le lendemain, Gérard accompanied me to the emergency room of l'hôpital Sainte Marguerite. J'ai de plus en plus de mal à marcher. I am made to pass various exams, radio scanner and IRM then the doctor on duty comes to announce the bad news: another tumor, situated this time in the spinal cord at the height of the eleventh vertebra and which explains my progressive paralysis of the legs and pelvis.

Etant dans une chambre à deux lits, je vois défiler toutes sortes de gens, "des gens de basse souche et des grands de la terre..." A depressed musician qui avalé tout ce qu'il pu trouver dans sa pharmacie et qui a été saved in extremis, un ancien haute montagne pilote victime d'un vagal malaise ou un vieux Marseillais qui semble sorti tout droit de un Pagnol film.

Three days later, Gérard escorted me to the TGV à destination de Paris on a rolling chaise. Puis une ambulance emmène us à l'Institut Curie où je vais devoir rester plusieurs jours voire plusieurs semaines. C'est là que la paralysis va parachever la conquête de la moitié inférieure de mon corps et que je me repasse en boucle le film de ma dernière promenade Marseillaise au bord de l'eau cradled par les mouettes de la Pointe Rouge.

-More videos by Gerard Thoati, documenting the clanks of Marseille accompanied by pieces of music written by his brother

-It is also worth noting the collaboration of Yves Tuati with Manny Beger. This is in the song “Fire and Smoke”, 1989, which Yves Tuati composed. The song is on the album “Soldier of One Day”.

-Invited to the group "Provence and the French Riviera Francophile tips"Directed by Zvi Hazanov and Orna Lieberman"

Thanks

-To Menachem Granit Yadin, friend of the soul

-To Gérard Touati, brother

-Emmanuel Chouraqui, brother-in-law

Without the content they gave me, this article would not have been written.