TIGRAN HAMASYAN: NEW ERA
All About Jazz
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March 10 2008
PA
At twenty-one, pianist Tigran Hamasyan has already done much to
launch his name into the world of emergent young lions. He has toured
throughout Europe, moving beyond his native Armenia to take prizes
in jazz competitions from Moscow to Monaco. And, after winning
the prestigious Thelonious Monk Jazz Piano Competition in 2006,
he studied in the United States before returning to Paris, where he
recorded his first album, New Era.
Hamasyan’s predicament is a common one. Like many young jazz musicians
releasing their first records, he tries to prove his place in jazz
with a few standards, while also working overly hard to showcase his
range as a performer through originals and atypical tunes. The result
is an album that tries to do too many things, and leaves the listener
without a singular sense of the musician’s voice.
The suite that opens the album illustrates this problem. The first
part, "Homesick," is an energetic romp, carefully structured to
let the trio work through a series of hits on the melody, before
Hamasyan takes off with an up-tempo solo that hovers over harmonies
in the manner of Keith Jarrett’s trio work. "Part 2: New Era" borrows
a single tumbling fragment of the earlier melody and expands it into
a vamp, with Hamasyan doubling on piano and keyboards.
Both sections of the suite would make for nice compositions on their
own. But in the end, the relationship between these two parts is so
tenuous that one wonders why Hamasyan wanted to draw them together as
a suite. And the fact is that the young winner of the Thelonious Monk
Jazz Piano Competition can actually perform any of the aesthetics
that he samples on New Era. He simply needs to choose which one he
will devote himself to for the time being.
Naturally, the most arresting sounds that come off this record are
the ones that make the most use of Hamasyan’s unique background. In
addition to the spate of jazz originals, New Era features two
Armenian folk songs. "Aparani Par" and "Zada Es" not only fill out
the album-they give it depth, nuance, and a unique character. This
development is largely due to Vardan Grigoryan, who plays a series of
Armenian woodwinds on these tracks. The narrow, often oriental sounds
of the duduk and the shvi, wailing above the melody on "Aparani Par,"
are not easily forgotten.
The world of young jazz pianists is disturbingly broad, and it’s easy
to get lost within it, even if one so clearly exhibits the talents
and potential of a Tigran Hamasyan. Where this player will be able to
come to the fore is in the characteristics that make him an original.
Too many others will release first records with "Well, You Needn’t" and
"Solar" on them as proof of validity, but a song like "Gypsyology"
could be found nowhere else. It has all the gaudy bravado of an
Eastern European folk dance, and it’s frequently hilarious, with its
constantly rising chords and unstoppable backbeat. But it’s also
devoid of self-consciousness, and it’s the kind of song that one
can’t help but listen to.
If Tigran Hamasyan can bring together his virtuosic understanding
of past piano masters with this taste for the folksy and dramatic
to create a singular voice out of them, he has a long and exciting
career before him.
Tracks: Part 1: Homesick; Part 2: New Era; Leaving Paris; Aparani Par
(The Dance Of Aparan); Well, You Needn’t; Memories From Hankavan And
now; Gypsyology; Zada Es; Solar; Forgotten World.
Personnel: Tigran Hamasyan: piano, keyboards; Francois Moutin:
acoustic bass; Louis Moutin: drums; Vardan Grigoryan: duduk (4,8),
shvi (4), zurna(8).