Artista da semana (março 7 - 13) - Amina Figarova

http://www.aminafigarova.com
Amina Figarova is without doubt one of the most productive jazz composers
and talented jazz piano players from Europe. Amina started playing piano
and composing at a very early age. She studied as a classical concert
pianist at the Baku Conservatory, jazz performance at the Rotterdam
Conservatory and the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Amina made
her recording debut with Attraction in 1994, and was accepted into the
prestigious Thelonious Monk Jazz Colony in Aspen, Colorado in 1998.



With her husband multi-flutist Bart Platteau
central to the three horn frontline Ms. Figarova arranges for her sextet,
she plays compelling, artful and heartfelt changes on the urbane, bluesy
lyricism originally developed by the likes of Miles Davis, Horace Silver,
Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, et al. Though the recipient
of rigorous Russian musical education in the classics, Amina has come
to identify her sound with these master mainstream-progressives of recent
jazz decades after having explored aspects of the avant garde (in September
Suite, her shocked and sad response to terrorists attacks on American
soil) and multi-keyboard fusion-oriented funk (on Another Me).




On the CD Above the Clouds (Munich Records) one of the most cosmopolitan and accomplished artists in jazz today proves
that the music is a natural not a national language. Amina Figarova,
the globe-trotting Azerbaijan-born, Rotterdam-based composer-pianist-bandleader
with more than a dozen recordings to her credit has created a new album
of original songs that refresh the classic post-bop idiom established
by labels such as Blue Note, Prestige and Impulse! during the 1950s
and 1960s. Far from derivative or concept-conscious, though, Above the
Clouds unfolds as a personal, vividly colored, confidently-propelled
contemporary soundtrack, satisfying in and of itself.


Amina is stylistically wide-ranging, unwilling
to be pinned down, but most of her compositions on Above the Clouds
continue in the direction she set forth on Come Escape With Me, a 2005
release which reached top 10 status on the Jazzweek radio airplay charts
(two tracks preview her next project, a suite for nonet). Throughout
the entire album Amina's measured, graceful, touching pianism and cooly-controlled
ensemble writing demonstrate commitment and ease with a jazz idiom.


Amina Figarova performs with her own group at
many jazz festivals and jazz clubs around the world: Netherlands, Belgium,
Luxembourg, Austria, Germany, France, UK, Denmark, Israel, Bahrain,
United Arabs Emirates, Mexico, USA, Canada, Brasil, Azerbaijan, Indonesia,
South Africa, Tunisia, Dutch Antilles, Croatia, Italy, etc…



(Partly form the press release by Howard
Mandel c 2008)