Description
Release Date: 2000
Label: Amfi Records
Track List
- Firewind
- Song For Gaby
- Canal Street Blues
- Girls Of Thirteen
- Waltz For M.
- Scurry
- I Don’t Know
- Lost And Lonely
- In Walked Bud
- Ev’rytime We Say Goodbye
- Past In Present
- Azerbaidjan Folk Song
Notes
Amina Figarova’s Firewind is the start of her Septet/Sextet group (1999), now (2020) more than 20 years on the road.
The language of Amina Figarova With a title like ‘Firewind’ I could imagine very intense music. Sharp and shatteringly loud. But Amina Figarova’s composition ‘Firewind’ evokes an entirely different mood. An atmosphere of nostalgia, of dreamy longing. And that’s how it should be, for it is a memory of her place of birth, Baku, Azerbedjan. City of oil wells (and as such of the ‘eternal’ flames of the drilling rigs), where the breeze off the Caspian Sea is always felt.
Amina Figarova received her classical piano training in Baku and Moscow, came to the Netherlands in 1989 for a holiday and the Netherlands became her new home for many years. When she heard Rob van Kreeveld play, jazz took hold of her. On the CD, also entitled Firewind, she plays Van Kreeveld’s composition ‘Girls of Thirteen’ as an ode to him. Figarova, who took her jazz training at the conservatories of Rotterdam and Berklee (USA), made her third jazz CD with Firewind. It’s also the best. Aside from tracks like, ‘In Walked Bud’ by Thelonius Monk, there are eight beautiful compositions of her own, ranging from tight bebop to a slow waltz. ”Music is the only way to describe what we feel,” says Figarova. And when she presents you with a track like ‘I Don’t Know’, you can’t help but agree. For in this composition you hear the hesitation and insecurity that come with not knowing. On Firewind Figarova is accompanied by her husband, flute player Bart Platteau, trumpet player Jarmo Hoogendijk, alto saxophonist Carolyn Breuer, tenor saxophonist Kurt van Herck, bass player Hein van de Geyn and drummer Hans Eijkenaar. A line up which gives Figariva every opportunity to show off her great arrangements for wind section. Her musicians also get a chance to do solo’s and especially Hoogendijk (Canal Street Blues) and Van de Geyn (Waltz for M.) steal the show. But they still remain in the shadow of the pianist!
