Chocolate, Mint & Gum

Matti Caspi worked as the musical manager of the “Chocolate Mint and Gum” trio (Yardena Arazzi, Ruthie Holzman and Leah Lupatin) during most of their career in the 70’s:

In the 1974 music festival Matti Caspi and the trio performed the songNoah(Y. Tahar Lev/M. Caspi). The song was included in the trio’s debut album (1975) which was entirely arranged by Caspi, and also in Caspi’s debut album (1974). (1974).
In this album, musically managed by Caspi, there was another song composed by him:“A Mother’s Song”(lyrics by: E. Manor).
Arazzi: “Working with Matti was very strict and precise. We got a fascinating musical inspiration from him and have had some laughs in between too”.

In 1976 Caspi composed and arranged for the trio the songSay Goodbye(E. Manor), which participated in the Eurovision that year in the Netherlands. The trio went on stage under the name “The Chicletes” and Caspi conducted the orchestra. The song (which was also recorded in German) won sixth place and was included in the trio’s second album, also musically managed by Matti Caspi.
This album featured the songs:“The Year 2000”(E. Manor) and“Instead of a Goodbye (If You Leave Now)”N. Yonatan), and Caspi also participate in some of the songs playing all the instruments and singing backing vocals (for example, inSunstroke").

For the Dror festival - A Song for the Winner - a festival in the eastern communities (Arab and North-African) style - Matti Caspi arranged two songs for the Chocolate Mint and Gum trio: in 1975 the“The Messiah”(Yoel Rippel/Ronnie Weiss), and in 1976 the“The Wine Song”(Ilan Goldhirsh/Aviyahu Madina).

For a 1975 TV show (“Songs from Another Country”) Caspi arranged for the trio the song“The Condor Passes By”.".

For the trio’s double collection album release, in 2003, Matti Caspi dedicated to them the following words:

“I met the ‘Chocolate Mint and Gum’ girls when we were serving in the military bands. They served in the Hanachal band and I in the Southern Command band. Producer Pashnel approached me and asked me to be their musical producer. We went through a long path of recordings for various radio programs and studio recordings.
The pinnacle moment was when they performed “Say Goodbye”, composed by me and written by Ehud Manor, at the Eurovision in the Netherlands. I enjoyed very much working with Leah, Ruthie and Yardena. All of our meetings were always seasoned with a rich humor, and the three of them are very good friends and highly musical - they always were very professional.
I wish for them that this double collection will forever set a milestone in Israeli culture”.