It has helped his musical career, no doubt, that he moved with his family to California, when he was 16. But he had already begun his lifetime devotion to music since the age of three, as his story goes. Along with a long list of prizes for his masterful skills on piano, Tigran has been recording since 2006, but most notably for jazz followers, he recorded for Verve Records in 2011. His take on jazz is not based on the West, for his own empowerment.

The Verve recording is his fourth album, A Fable, and all but one track are his solo piano compositions (although Wikipedia mistakenly claims that he has written all of them). And so, for the record, and just to correct Wikipedia, Tigran Hamasyan did not write “Someday My Prince Will Come,” from his recording A Fable on Verve Records. This one comes from Disney’s film “Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs” (1937) and was transformed into a jazz standard by Miles Davis on his album of the same name in 1959. Disregarding this one, Tigran uses Armenian hymns, Armenian folk music and poetry as the basis and inspiration for his own compositions and it hardly sounds like a jazz album for Verve. But in this way, it intrigues by its difference.

From the beginning, as a songwriter/composer, Tigran has carved a particular sound or his signature sound, between jazz and the contemporary classical genres, based on his heritage or specifically, Armenian folk music and poetry. With big neighbors, Russia, Turkey, and Iran, Armenia’s Caucasas culture has a distinctly mystical folklore going back thousands of years.

On the older recordings of Tigran with a group, the sound often comes close to progressive rock of the 1970s, like Rush or Yes, or Frank Zappa of that era, meaning lots of songs with sudden or jerky and odd twists or turns and grandiose finales. Go Go Penguin does this too. However, Tigran is more composed and one could even say elegant in his approach as a soloist. At times, he is in zones of contemporary classical, rather than any jazz, but no matter. As a masterful pianist, he complexly weaves so many tendencies and influences, and as modern jazz it sizzles.

After establishing his career in California, instead of moving to New York City, Tigran returned to Armenia and he’s mostly there currently based in Yerevan. This is obviously key to his immersion in the folklore of his heritage including ancient poetry and sacred texts that he takes for inspiration. But he still touches base with the greater jazz world, as on his album StandArt (2022) playing only (or all but one) jazz standards, including “De-Dah” by Elmo Hope (a pianist from Los Angeles, who recorded mostly in the 1950s), and “Big Foot” by Charlie Parker. This album has Tigran’s strongest line-up to date of top jazz players including Mark Turner, Joshua Redman, and Ambrose Akinmusire, and it packs his strongest jazz punch, just to prove he can.

“The Bird of a Thousand Voices” (BOTV) is Tigran’s newest project, a transmedia music theater piece, which premiered at the Holland Festival in Amsterdam in June 2024. On this project, Tigran is inspired by an ancient folktale about “a magical bird that clears away dark thoughts and fills people’s hearts with light.” There is an immersive light show with shadow play that is projected for this performance. Working with high-tech visual artists is unusual for jazz players, but Tigran Hamasyan’s vision and his progressive music best suits such cutting edge visuals.

Tigran Hamasyan is performing BOTV (multimedia performance with a group) or solo piano in selected venues in Europe and UK, in November. For the venues with dates, see the list below.

Sunday, Nov. 17—EFG London Jazz Festival, London, UK (solo)
Wednesday, Nov. 20—Prague Sounds (Rudolfinum), Prague, Czech Republic (solo)
Monday, Nov. 25—Theatre de l’Oden, Paris, France (performing BOTV)
Tuesday, Nov. 26—Le Carre Sevigne, Cesson-sevigne, France (performing BOTV)
Thursday, Nov. 28—Starzy i Mlodzi Jazz fest, Krakow, Poland (performing BOTV)

Tony Ozuna is a senior lecturer for the School of Journalism, Media & Visual Arts at Anglo-American University in Prague.

from https://jazzineurope.mfmmedia.nl