JAZZ - AZIZA MUSTAFA ZADEH

Recorded live, when she appeared at the Philharmonie concert hall during the 1994 Munich Klaviersommer, this programme introduces an extraordinarily talented young musician from Azerbaijan who has become a huge star in Europe. Aziza Mustafa Zadeh has absorbed the influences of Chick Corea and Miles Davis into the intoxicating rhythms of her homeland and come up with a musical blend of fire and passion, embracing jazz, classical and folk musics.

Zadeh's reputation as one of the big names in modern jazz is due mainly to the string of sensational live performances she has given over the last few years, and now her recorded work is as equally sucessful. In 1993 she received the ECHO award for the Best Jazz Production of the Year from the German Phonographic Society, and was recently awarded their prestigious Jazz Award for her album Always.

Zadeh plays a selection of her own compositions including Always, Quiet, Alone, dedicated to her late father, and jazz standards such as Hush Now, Don't Explain and a scat version of Take Five, as well as improvising at the keyboard. She also sings, demonstrating her exquisite and unique vocal ability.

Aziza Mustafa Zadeh (Azeri: ?ziz? Mustafazad?; born December 19, 1969) also known as The Princess of Jazz, or Die Prinzessin des Jazz or as Jazziza is an Azerbaijani singer, pianist and composer who plays a fusion of jazz and mugam (a traditional improvisational style of Azerbaijan) with classical and Avant-garde influences. Reviewers have said that her style also shows some influence from Keith Jarrett. She currently resides in Mainz, Germany with her mother, Eliza Mustafa Zadeh, who is also her manager. Her two favorite leisure activities, she says, are painting and sleeping. She is a vegetarian. Since 1991, Aziza sold around 15 million albums worldwide.

Aziza was born in Baku (Azebajan) to musical parents Vagif and Eliza Mustafa Zadeh. Vagif was a pianist and composer, famous for creating mugam-jazz fusion in which his daughter now plays. Eliza is a classically trained singer and Georgia native.

Aziza enjoyed all forms of art, especially dancing, painting and singing. At the age of three, she made her stage debut with her father, improvising vocals. She began studying classical piano at an early age, showing special interest in the works of famous composers Johann Sebastian Bach and Frédéric Chopin. Soon thereafter, she showed a growing talent for improvisation.

On December 16, 1979, Aziza's father died of a severe heart attack in Tashkent at the age of 39, three days away from Aziza's tenth birthday. (The chronology of important family dates here is very strange. Aziza's birthday is the 19th, her mother's is the 17th. Vagif died on the 16th and was buried on the 18th. Aziza says, "So all those dates-16, 17, 18, and 19-are such a mixture of joy and sadness for us and such a philosophical paradox-life and death juxtaposed upon each other like that.") In order to help her daughter cope with this blow, Aziza's mother gave up her career as a singer to help nurture her daughter's own musical talents.

In 1988, at the age of 18, Aziza's mugam-influenced style helped her win third place together with American Matt Cooper in the Thelonious Monk piano competition in Washington, D.C. It was around this time that she moved to Germany with her mother.

From 1999 to 2002 Aziza was married to Paul Thomas, currently an economics don at Winchester College in Hampshire, UK. They married at Brighton Registry Office.

Aziza released her debut album, Aziza Mustafa Zadeh, in 1991. Her second album, Always, won her the Phono Academy Prize, a prestigious German music award, and the Echo Prize from Sony. She has since performed in many countries with many jazz and traditional luminaries and released several more albums, the most recent being Contrasts, released in 2006.

Aziza returned to Azerbaijan in June 2007 for the Baku Jazz Festival starring in her own concert at the Opera and Ballet Theater and headlining the end-of-festival concert at the open-air Green Theater. Here she presented a remarkable rendition of 'Shamans', involving harmonising with her own echo.

Source: Wikipedia