Jazz guitar legend John McLaughlin plays for Palestine

The Palestinian territories are rarely a destination for jazz musicians let alone stars of an art form that is more at home in big cities such as New York and Chicago.
Which makes the performance of jazz guitar legend John McLaughlin before a packed auditorium in the West Bank city of Ramallah yesterday night all the more remarkable.
He toured areas of the West Bank before enthralling the mostly local audience who attended his "solidarity concert" for Palestinians with a fusion of Western and Eastern sounds.
The 72-year-old British musician, who has recorded with the likes of late jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, said proceeds from the concert would go to a local NGO.

"People here are isolated... And the situation is such that since very few people can leave, it's important that people from the outside come in," he told AFP.
Palestinians "don't have freedom, they don't even have passports... It's lamentable that an entire people are in such a situation. So I feel it incumbent upon myself to make other people aware of it," McLaughlin said.

The concert was the second that McLaughlin has performed in Ramallah after an appearance in 2012 in support of Al Mada, a charity which uses music therapy to help traumatised and marginalised Palestinians.
"I am personally aware of how marvellous the power of music is. It has fantastic healing qualities," McLaughlin said.

"We're not making some gigantic contribution like building a dam or a reservoir, we're just playing music. But music to me is... Very powerful," he told local reporters on Tuesday.
Yesterday's concert, which featured a heavy influence of Indian music for which McLaughlin is known, enraptured those who attended.
"It was excellent, I love jazz and there's not much live jazz here," said Ramallah resident Nabil Turjman.
"It's wonderful that someone this well-known comes from so far, it shows great support for and solidarity with Palestinians," said Turjman's wife, Rana.
McLaughlin, who arrived Tuesday from India on the final leg of his Asia tour, also sat in on Al Mada therapy sessions.