BIOGRAPHY Aziza Mustafa- Zadeh Was Born in Baku, the Capital Of
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BIOGRAPHY Aziza Mustafa- Zadeh was born in Baku, the Capital of Azerbaijan, to musical parents. Her father, Vagif Mustafa Zadeh, a pianist and composer, became famous by creating a fusion between jazz and the traditional Azerbaijani music known as MUGAM. His wife, Eliza Mustafa Zadeh, was a classically- trained singer from Georgia. As a young child Aziza enjoyed all forms of art - dancing, painting, singing - and at the age of 3 she appeared in public with her father, improvising with voice. But it was her talent for the piano that eventually shone through. Having studied classical piano from an early age, and despite her enthusiasm for the compositions of JS Bach and Frederic Chopin, she soon began displaying a gift for improvisation. "I didn't practise enough," she admits. "If I don't feel like playing then I don't play." When her father died tragically on stage at the age of 39, it was a shocking blow to the young Aziza, and a major turning point in her life. Her mother's response to the crisis was to give up her own career as a classical singer and dedicate herself to nurturing her daughter's musical gifts. She now acts as her manager, and Aziza has come to rely on her judgment when she's writing or recording new pieces. "I trust her because she's extremely experienced as a classical musician and she had jazz experience with my father," Aziza points out. "And she knows a lot about music and history and literature." When she was 17, she won the Thelonious Monk piano competition in Washington DC, playing some of Monk's compositions but in her own mugam- influenced style. Around the same time, she moved to Germany with her mother, and concentrated on developing her own distinctive musical direction. In 1991, she released her debut album, entitled simply Aziza Mustafa Zadeh. It was immediately clear that this was an artist with an unusual and remarkable voice, able to blend her ethnic roots with both classical and jazz inputs. Early favourable impressions were reinforced by 1993's Always, which won Aziza both the ECHO Award and the German Phono Association's Jazz Award. So impressive were her talents that a prestigious squad of jazz musicians chose to join her in the studio for 1995's Dance Of Fire. Many less self- assured artists might have been overawed by a line up comprising guitarist Al Di Meola, bassman Stanley Clarke, former Weather Report drummer Omar Hakim and saxophonist Bill Evans, but once again Aziza produced an album unmistakeably imbued with her particular musical inclinations. 'Aziza is a genius, both as a composer and as a performer. Her music has much more meaning for me than just straight jazz because what I hear is her culture', said Di Meola. 'I hear Azerbaijan.' With audiences now packing out her live concerts across Europe and beyond, from London and Paris to Istanbul and Tel Aviv, she created a mild frisson of excitement by wearing little more than long tendrils of hair on the sleeve of Seventh Truth (1996). Perhaps this image was designed to mirror the music within, which was mostly stripped down to solo piano and voice. The follow-up, Jazziza, mixed up her own compositions with jazz standards including My Funny Valentine and Dave Brubeck's Take Five. Shamans, recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London, draws together the varied strands of Aziza's music, brilliantly showcasing her classically- influenced piano playing on Bach Zadeh or Portrait Of Chopin, and giving full rein to her highly personalised vocal technique on compositions such as Ladies Of Azerbaijan or Sweet Sadness. The title piece is an unusual departure for Aziza, using only percussion, the chirruping of a cricket, and multiple overdubs of her own voice to evoke a mystical shadow-world. "For me, the spiritual part of life is the most important," she explains. "Shamans are special people - they can heal you." The CD of jazz pianist-singer-composer Aziza Mustafa Zadeh Contrasts (2006). Recorded at the Jazziza Records Studio. Mixed and edited at the Bauer Studios. Aziza Mustafa Zadeh - a sketch Singing, playing. Still singing? “My hands and my voice are fighting like a married couple, they are jealous of each other". Says Aziza mustafa Zadeh. And sometimes she lets both meet each other forcefully. Dancing Bolero with passionate piano explosions and an unleashed powerful voice she then withdraws herself, aspirates elegiac-dramatic variations about Chopins last days on the piano. The jazzy “Night Life in Georgia" almost becomes a “Lush Life", the stars dance to it, Sheherezadeh dreams, of Jazz, too, she lets bees whir and from afar Eric Satie greets to the “Cloudy Evening». A painting, that is what Aziza Mustafa Zadeh wants to actually create. An enormous palette of colors, processing thousands of impressions and influences. Azerbaijan, Baku, Mainz, home, stage, studio, mugam, classical music jazz, painting, nature, people. The traditions, the past, the roots. Her father, Vagif Mustafa Zadeh, an acclaimed jazz pianist-composer, who passed away in 1979. The mother, Eliza Mustafa Zadeh, singer and mentor of her daughter. And the musicions, of course, from Johann Sebastian Bach to Toots Thielemanns, from Frederic Chopin to Al Di Meola, from Philip Catherine to Nicolai Rimskij-Korsakow. What a painting! All of this put together in her own style, powerful and sensitive, award-winning. The Echo in Germany in 1994 and the Thelonious Monk Competition in Washington in the late eighties. Women from Azerbaijan, says the musician, are “delicate but proud". It is quite similar with the contrasts with seemingly antagonistic lines, which converge at Aziza Mustafa Zadeh, from which she designs new pictures, paintings, landscapes, a whole world, carefully and with caution in order for it not to become too flamboyant. “In music", she says, “you have to be very gentle". Like a nightingale, like a rose. Singing? Playing? Painting? Listening! What Contrasts! Aziza Mustafa Zadeh - Contrasts 2 Opera Jazz Take an abundance of Liszt, a little Shuhmann, add some Ravel and Rimskiy-Korsakow and just a little more Bach. As if that was not enough contrast already, Aziza Mustafa Zadeh mixes in Jazz – a lot of Jazz – and Mugam music from her Azerbaijani hometown of Baku. There are many contrasts in Aziza Mustafa Zadeh's work, not least due to the conflict between hands and voice, which Aziza Mustafa Zadeh acts out to the joy of her listeners, and which has continuously been documented on CD since 1991. Aziza Mustafa Zadeh is a pianist, She is a pianist like her father, the acclaimed jazz-pianist and composer Vagif Mustafa Zadeh, who passed away much too early in 1979. Aziza Mustafa Zadeh is a singer. She is a singer like her mother Eliza Mustafa Zadeh, her mentor and constant companion. Now the pianist and the singer meet again and again and there are contrasts, as they could only be experienced before in her concert – "Opera Jazz". It seems to be that two worlds meet. There is the pianist-composer – the Jazzer with romantic inclinations – who tells of angels, guarding dreams, of lonely dolphins, of two brothers and of colors, red and black. And then there is a completely new world: the world of the great opera. Mozart. His Countess Almaviva from "The Marriage of Figaro", Donna Anna from "Don Giovanni" and also the Queen of the Night from "The Magic Flute" borrow Aziza Mustafa Zadeh voice. She sings Leonora from Verdi's "The Power of Destiny" and Handel's Xerxes aria "Ombra mai fu", better known as "Largo". Her voice swings from mezzo-soprano to highest coloratura, always accompanied from her own arrangements on piano. Here too can be heard, that all the contrasts, that Aziza Mustafa Zadeh uses are all that which Aziza Mustafa Zadeh loves: simply music. And perhaps a line from the Pergolesi attributed "Se tu m'ami" is something like a trademark for this glamorous singer, pianist and composer: "Non perche me piace il giglio gli altri fiori sprezzero." – "Just because the lily pleases me, I do not have to despise the other flowers.” Jazz, it seems, is still a man’s world. Up to now the only recognized roles for women in the Afro- American music of the last century have been as singers. Acclaimed female instrumentalists and composers are few and far in between - and, interestingly, almost all of them have been keyboard players: Lil Hardin, Shirley Scott, Marian McPartland, Carla Bley, Joanne Brackeen, Ireen Schweizer or Barbara Dennerlein. Another name can be added to this roll of honour - AZIZA MUSTAFA-ZADEH. She was born in Baku, the capitol of the Soviet Republic of Aserbaidschan, on 19th of December 1969. Yet despite a mysterious name that could be straight out of Arabian Nights, this pianist and singer does not regard herself as the exotic product of a distant land. Since she was born, music has been an integral part of her life. Aziza Mustafa-Zadeh’s father is a legendary composer and pianist, who played an important role in making Jazz acceptable in Russia. Her mother is a trained and famous singer of traditional Aserbaidschan music, and has rarely left her daughter’s side during the constant rise of fame within the last decade. Aziza Mustafa Zadeh’s music is the natural, easy fusion of two fundamental elements: Jazz, the modern sound of freedom, and Mogam, the ancient music of wisdom and love. Though she first sang in public at the age of three- and-a-half, it was a piano concert, which actually brought the turning point in her life.