"Music, especially jazz music, was a way to protest. Jazz was created in America, but the jazz that I love, from Louis Armstrong onwards, was a revolutionary art form.”

So says jazz saxophonist Gilad Atzmon, who is bringing his latest critically-acclaimed show to the Dome Corn Exchange this weekend.

Gilad Atzmon With Strings sees the musician’s Orient House Ensemble augmented by the Sigamos String Quartet, with the collective taking as their template the album that changed Gilad’s life forever – Charlie Parker With Strings.

“Before that I was like an ordinary lad, listening to rock ’n’ roll and Queen and The Beatles,” says Gilad. “Something that is unique about Charlie Parker is every time you listen to it, it sounds fresh. Very few artists have that quality.”

The show mixes tracks from the album with some specially composed Atzmon originals, as collected on his latest album, In Loving Memory Of America, which was released earlier this month.

“America was a very important place for me,” says Gilad. “I was totally in love with America. I admired the place because of the fantasy of jazz. Then it turned out to be a very disappointing place. I have never managed to integrate this dream of America being such a revolutionary place artistically and the crimes against humanity that are continually committed by America or its allies.

“With this album I try to understand and elaborate on this conflict.”

Anyone who Googles Gilad will find certain words constantly linked to his name: fiery and outspoken being the most common. This is particularly true when it comes to the Zionist ideology of his home country, Israel.

“I will not shy off from saying what I believe,” he says. “I am an Israeli. I was a soldier in the first Lebanon war, I saw my army kill 20,000 Lebanese civilians and nobody did a thing.

“So I was very critical and said, ‘This is Israel, they are the new Nazis’. People would say, ‘How can you say that?’.

“Then we had the Lebanon conflict in 2006, and people would come to me and say, ‘Gilad, you’re right’. With Gaza people are saying: ‘F****** hell, you’re right’.

“I’m not a genius, but I saw it happening. If you see your neighbour killing his son in cold blood and believe that he will kill again you’re not a genius, you’re just observant.”

Gilad’s politics are most evident in his essays – which have been published in The Guardian and The Telegraph, as well as Aljazeera Magazine, Rebellion and Palestine Think Tank – and his novels, which include the satirical works My One And Only Love and A Guide To The Perplexed.

But his views also transfer into his music. “Jazz was part of the political struggle,” he says. “In the 1970s the US decided that jazz was the classical music of America and it became a bogus art form.

“Black people weren’t interested in this music as a form of expression – it had become an acoustic art form where people could play very fast and do very clever things.

“The reason my jazz is so popular is because I go back and find the bond between jazz and social struggle.

“I try to communicate with people’s hearts.”

  • Starts 8pm, tickets £15/£12.50. Call 01273 709709.