Aziza Mustafa Zadeh

The first CD bears as its title the name of the artist, as simple as that. Aziza presents 15 compositions of her own, where she distinguishes herself primarily as a pianist. These are 15 pearls on a string that need to be cherished one at a time. Although the tracks display an astonishing diversity of character and three of them incorporate her singing voice, the fact that these are all solo piano pieces, and not a small number at that, brings with it the danger of surfeit. The same thing happens if you listen to the entire Goldberg Variations in one go. One needs to give those tracks enough room to expand and display their nature.
Those are not easy-pleasy compositions: clearly, this CD is the most demanding for the listener, since we have become unaccustomed to listen to music that is not technically enhanced or digitally remastered, all the more if it is not "conventional" music.

But if we give it some time there is much to be discovered on this CD, and the more I listen to these tunes the better they get! The track called Inspiration for example shows us how Aziza uses her voice and how she "thinks" musically: her scat-like singing takes up the melody her right hand plays, which is--so typically for mugam--forever moving it seems. To every note there is attached a little trill, an ornament, so as to never let a note just be "plain". And she sings as fast as she plays! Her astonishing vocal abilities are amply displayed in the "Short variation," based on a theme by Jazz violinist Michal Urbaniak, Moment. (Given her singing technique I bet she would be a brilliant wind instrument player). The track Oriental Fantasy shows how Aziza plays with the cliché of Western conceptions of "oriental" music: well aware of the strangeness of some of her harmonies to Western ears and her Azerbaijani origins that make her prone to become the "exotic other," the "Oriental Princess of Jazz" as she has been called, she quickly lets go of supposedly typical oriental harmonies and takes us on a much more idiosyncratic and unconventional musical journey.

On the whole, one can say that the amount of "traditional" musical matter is much less prominent than in later productions, and that her compositions are much more avant-garde and jazz-induced. In fact, Aziza draws from the entire texture that the world of music provides for her, and her comment on the initial track Quiet Alone must be understood as a general practice for Aziza's musical understanding. She writes: "This piece was written by my father, interpreted through the prism of my soul. This is a dedication..." In this sense musical allusions are present everywhere and her play is as much a dedication as an exploration of her own personal universe. Tea on the Carpet and Exprompt bear Brackeenesque traits, pieces such as Aziza's Dream are reminiscent of Latin-American harmonies and rhythms, while Character seems to echo Bach, and in what has become the epitome of the art of Jazz improvisation, its variation on a simple, straightforward theme--in superior style--combines modernity with its classical musical heritage. On My Ballad, Aziza for the first time sings in Azeri, exhibiting the mysterious, enchanting beauty of her mother-tongue.

Remain my personal favorites: Blue Day, Character, Chargah, I Cannot Sleep, and the last piece Two Candles.

Aziza Mustafa Zadeh is certainly an impressive first work, giving us a pretty clear idea where the immense talent and creativity is going to take this young artist, versed in both technical and expressive skills, acting as composer, pianist as well as singer: straight to the top of the Mount Olympus of Jazz music!


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