Interview with
Amina Figarova
Jazz composer & Pianist
Amina Figarova Sextet: A Twenty-Year Journey
With the release of Road to the Sun, Amina Figarova (a Sanctuary 2016 featured artist) celebrates the 20th anniversary of her band. In 1998, while playing with a big band made up of gifted music students from Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz (operating as the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz since January 2019), Amina was inspired to create a smaller band that would have the same power as a big band. The band was originally conceived as a septet and became a sextet in 2005. Amina says, “Many of the most incredible musicians from around the world have been a part of this band and of my band family. It is so much fun writing for them, trying out different directions, different unknowns. This continuous journey is an exquisite adventure – enlightening, illuminating, beautiful, easy and challenging – all at the same time.”
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Listen to Amina talking about musical texture (or layers used in composition)
while you listen to snippets from her new album Road to the Sun. |
Road to the Sun Musicians
Amina Figarova, piano
Bart Platteau, flutes Alex Pope Norris, trumpet, flugelhorn Luques Curtis, bass Wayne Escoffery, tenor, soprano sax Marc Mommaas, tenor, soprano sax James Brown, drums Brian Richburg Jr., drums Hasan Bakr, percussion Sara Caswell, violin Lois Martin, viola Jody Redhage Ferber, cello Album Cover Art: Chris Barreto |
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Amina Figarova is an internationally-known jazz pianist and composer who was born in Baku, Azerbaijan. She took classical lessons as a young girl, but found that she loved improvisation. She grew up listening to jazz at home, and in the late ‘80s decided to pursue this complex music genre at Rotterdam Conservatory in the Netherlands. She then completed her formal education at Berklee College of Music in Boston.
For decades, she has played with musicians from across Europe and the U.S. The Amina Figarova Sextet (which includes flutist, Bart Platteau, Amina’s partner and husband of 27 years) has triumphed at the main stage of the Newport Jazz Festival. The sextet has been invited repeatedly to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and has won critical and popular acclaim in Chicago, Detroit, Paris, Amsterdam and New York. Thomas Conrad of Jazz Times says, “Figarova is among the most important composers to come into jazz in the new millennium.” Once again Amina has pushed the boundaries with her compositional approach for her new albums Road to the Sun and her upcoming album with Amina Figarova ‘Edition 113,’ totaling fifteen albums since her debut titled Attraction (1994). She currently resides in Manhattan with her husband where they enjoy the jazz-rich culture that surrounds them. |
Myrna Beth Haskell, managing editor, visited Amina at her home in New York City to talk about her band’s twenty-year journey, the inspiration around some of her compositions and her latest work.
Tell me about the beginning.
I was at a summer camp in Snowmass, Colorado, a small town just outside of Aspen that is at a very high elevation. It was so inspirational playing high up in the mountains. I was invited to play there with students from the Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz.* It was an educational experience. I was there to learn and improve. The mission of the program was to get top students elevated to an even higher level.
I was experimenting with writing for horns, and I was playing with a big band there. Piano players don’t have an exciting role within a big band. I wanted to find a way for a small group to get the same sound, but for there to be room for each musician to shine. My band started as a septet: piano, bass, drums and four horns. When that first album came out [Firewind], the reviews were fantastic, and many mentioned, ‘This sounds exactly like a big band.’ So I was thrilled that the album accomplished what I had intended.
That first year or two, we were performing in big concerts right away – it was a whirlwind.
*The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz (today known as the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz) is a non-profit music education organization, co-founded in 1986 by Thelonious Monk III, the son of the late American jazz musician Thelonious Monk, opera singer Maria Fisher and jazz musician Clark Terry.
Did your style change as the years passed?
I wanted to add another color to the band and do some more experimentation. Night Train [her fourth album] is a story about a train station in the middle of nowhere. You can hear the train coming…you’re going on a trip. There are stops at different locations along the way – different countries…cultures. I asked a vocalist to join us for this album. A haiku [Japanese style poem of 3 lines] is read during one of the pieces, too.
Was there a pivotal moment in your journey that you’d like to discuss?
One of the turning points was when I was in New York when 911 happened. I would pass all these firefighters every day going to the site. Soon afterward, I saw this documentary with a mom and daughter from England. The father had died in the towers. The family was looking for closure, so they had visited the site. The daughter was still hoping her father would come out of the rubble alive. It was heartbreaking. I was also mourning my father who had passed away around that time.
September Suite was a response to 911 and also my own personal grief. It was a major change for me because it lead me to writing about pain, anger and madness. [This was also the first album as a sextet, without their trumpet player]. My style was changing as I was writing. I was looking for more fragility, more sharing. The music was just pouring out of me. “Rage” was a contemporary piece with classical elements.
Amina explains that these emotions brought her to a level where she could dig deeper.
Tell me about the beginning.
I was at a summer camp in Snowmass, Colorado, a small town just outside of Aspen that is at a very high elevation. It was so inspirational playing high up in the mountains. I was invited to play there with students from the Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz.* It was an educational experience. I was there to learn and improve. The mission of the program was to get top students elevated to an even higher level.
I was experimenting with writing for horns, and I was playing with a big band there. Piano players don’t have an exciting role within a big band. I wanted to find a way for a small group to get the same sound, but for there to be room for each musician to shine. My band started as a septet: piano, bass, drums and four horns. When that first album came out [Firewind], the reviews were fantastic, and many mentioned, ‘This sounds exactly like a big band.’ So I was thrilled that the album accomplished what I had intended.
That first year or two, we were performing in big concerts right away – it was a whirlwind.
*The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz (today known as the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz) is a non-profit music education organization, co-founded in 1986 by Thelonious Monk III, the son of the late American jazz musician Thelonious Monk, opera singer Maria Fisher and jazz musician Clark Terry.
Did your style change as the years passed?
I wanted to add another color to the band and do some more experimentation. Night Train [her fourth album] is a story about a train station in the middle of nowhere. You can hear the train coming…you’re going on a trip. There are stops at different locations along the way – different countries…cultures. I asked a vocalist to join us for this album. A haiku [Japanese style poem of 3 lines] is read during one of the pieces, too.
Was there a pivotal moment in your journey that you’d like to discuss?
One of the turning points was when I was in New York when 911 happened. I would pass all these firefighters every day going to the site. Soon afterward, I saw this documentary with a mom and daughter from England. The father had died in the towers. The family was looking for closure, so they had visited the site. The daughter was still hoping her father would come out of the rubble alive. It was heartbreaking. I was also mourning my father who had passed away around that time.
September Suite was a response to 911 and also my own personal grief. It was a major change for me because it lead me to writing about pain, anger and madness. [This was also the first album as a sextet, without their trumpet player]. My style was changing as I was writing. I was looking for more fragility, more sharing. The music was just pouring out of me. “Rage” was a contemporary piece with classical elements.
Amina explains that these emotions brought her to a level where she could dig deeper.
Once you transitioned to a sextet, what type of performances were you booking?
I remember when we performed at the Chicago Jazz Festival with 20,000 people in the audience. After our first song, we got a standing ovation. Then, we performed at the Newport Jazz Festival on the main stage with Wynton Marsalis and other greats. We were traveling a lot and touring in Europe and the U.S. The communication with the audience has a huge impact on my writing, and the music is changing and developing all of the time.
We released Blue Whisper in 2015. [Dave Wayne, critic with All About Jazz, wrote the following of Amina’s 13th album, “…a strong set of modern mainstream acoustic jazz. Far from a routine effort, Figarova peppers the disc with plenty of curveballs - such as the spoken word on "Hear My Voice" - that will keep listeners on their toes.”]
Amina’s deeply personal responses to social turmoil and universal life transitions were inspirations for the compositions in Blue Whisper.
What’s next?
I’m always looking for another color…another shade for my compositions. In Road to the Sun, I bring strings in. There are also two to three layers happening at the same time.
Amina talks about musical texture (number and types of layers she uses in composition) in the voice-over video at the beginning of this interview page.
In the beginning of 1998, I created my album called Another Me. This is a collection of music that shows me doing other stuff besides jazz….funk, fusion, R&B…different styles. I have done nothing electric since then. I’ve worked on another new album with a new group, Amina Figarova ‘Edition 113,’ and we’ve added electric bass (Yasushi Nakamura) and guitar (Rez Abassi), along with Rudy Royston on drums, Bart Platteau on flute and EWI, and myself on keyboard and piano. This work came to me with sessions at home…a lot of my work does. I live in an area surrounded by incredible musicians. The compositions come naturally from these impromptu sessions in the afternoons. You’re 100% sharp in the moment. It’s a unique thing…these impromptu sessions in New York. I’ve played all over the world and with so many people, and I can tell you there is nothing like it.
As I talked with her, I realized that Amina’s passion for collaborative work and her respect for her fellow musicians is undeniable.
My band is my instrument. There is no end to what you can do with six people.
I remember when we performed at the Chicago Jazz Festival with 20,000 people in the audience. After our first song, we got a standing ovation. Then, we performed at the Newport Jazz Festival on the main stage with Wynton Marsalis and other greats. We were traveling a lot and touring in Europe and the U.S. The communication with the audience has a huge impact on my writing, and the music is changing and developing all of the time.
We released Blue Whisper in 2015. [Dave Wayne, critic with All About Jazz, wrote the following of Amina’s 13th album, “…a strong set of modern mainstream acoustic jazz. Far from a routine effort, Figarova peppers the disc with plenty of curveballs - such as the spoken word on "Hear My Voice" - that will keep listeners on their toes.”]
Amina’s deeply personal responses to social turmoil and universal life transitions were inspirations for the compositions in Blue Whisper.
What’s next?
I’m always looking for another color…another shade for my compositions. In Road to the Sun, I bring strings in. There are also two to three layers happening at the same time.
Amina talks about musical texture (number and types of layers she uses in composition) in the voice-over video at the beginning of this interview page.
In the beginning of 1998, I created my album called Another Me. This is a collection of music that shows me doing other stuff besides jazz….funk, fusion, R&B…different styles. I have done nothing electric since then. I’ve worked on another new album with a new group, Amina Figarova ‘Edition 113,’ and we’ve added electric bass (Yasushi Nakamura) and guitar (Rez Abassi), along with Rudy Royston on drums, Bart Platteau on flute and EWI, and myself on keyboard and piano. This work came to me with sessions at home…a lot of my work does. I live in an area surrounded by incredible musicians. The compositions come naturally from these impromptu sessions in the afternoons. You’re 100% sharp in the moment. It’s a unique thing…these impromptu sessions in New York. I’ve played all over the world and with so many people, and I can tell you there is nothing like it.
As I talked with her, I realized that Amina’s passion for collaborative work and her respect for her fellow musicians is undeniable.
My band is my instrument. There is no end to what you can do with six people.
