Press Release: My One and Only Love

Tel Aviv-based saxophonist and composer Eli Degibri announces the November 3, 2026 digital release of his tenth record, My One and Only Love, on Degibri Records (distributed by Helicon, with a vinyl edition to be announced). Recorded in New York City on January 11 and 12, 2023 during the quartet’s engagement at Manhattan’s Blue Note Jazz Club, the album features Degibri on tenor and soprano saxophones alongside his longtime Israeli quartet: 2018 Herbie Hancock Competition-winning pianist Tom Oren, bassist Alon Near, and drummer Eviatar Slivnik. Two singles precede the release: the nine-minute title track “My One and Only Love” (October 20, 2026) and “Is There A Doctor In The House” (October 27, 2026).

Across seven originals and two reimagined standards, Degibri channels volcanic emotion through a warm, flexible sound and what Aaron Goldberg called an aesthetic “less about playing a lot of stuff over the changes than trying to tell a story every time he puts a horn in his mouth,” fulfilling the motto a Berklee teacher gave him thirty years ago: “You play old in a new way.” On the nine-minute title track, a ballad recorded by tenor heroes Michael Brecker, John Coltrane, and Sonny Rollins, Degibri blends Western and Middle Eastern elements into “an homage to this place that basically made me what I am. You can hear the love and the affection, the sadness and also the aggression, and the connection between East and West. I grew up in Jaffa, where Jews and Arabs grew up together in school. We all were mixed. I am all these elements, and I am proud to be all of that.”

Forged over seven years as a working band, the quartet plays with a risk-taking interplay that Degibri sees as a continuation of his 2010 album Israeli Song, recorded with Ron Carter, Al Foster, and Brad Mehldau. “The logic was that I’m an Israeli who came to the U.S. to learn about jazz and to play my compositions with my idols and legends,” Degibri says. “Here I’m telling a similar story from a more mature point of view, as an established musician back in the place that raised me, and I’m doing it with Israeli musicians who also have this dream, who probably heard Israeli Song when they were kids, and maybe I can make their dream come true.”

The repertoire moves from the percolating 15/8 pulse of “Is There A Doctor In The House,” propelling Degibri into an ascendant five-minute solo, to two works shaped by his study of classical piano: “Requiem to Henri,” dedicated to his late father, and “The Good Fairy Rachel,” played on soprano saxophone for his late mother, Rachel. On Cole Porter’s “Love For Sale,” Slivnik lays down a crisp samba groove inspired by Israeli composers Yoni Rechter and Matti Caspi, setting up rollicking choruses from Oren and an intense concluding vamp.

The quartet also revisits “Momento Fugaz” (from Degibri’s five-star DownBeat album Cliff Hangin’), highlighted by Oren’s chromatic solo, before turning to “Oreo The Dog,” a medium blues named for a rescue dog adopted by Degibri’s family (“Many dogs were abandoned when the October 7th war started,” Degibri says. “Adopting him was a beautiful thing; he brings us and the babies so much love”), and “Lydian Smile.” The album closes with “God Bless Little Dorian,” named for his first-born son, opening with a bass motif echoing Sonny Rollins and Jim Hall’s “God Bless the Child” on The Bridge.

Degibri and his quartet celebrate the world premiere of My One and Only Love on Thursday, November 12, 2026 at the 40th Red Sea Jazz Festival in Eilat with special guest Jess Koren, Degibri’s first saxophone teacher.