Shahin Novrasli - Emanation (2017)

Born in Azerbaijan, Shahin Novrasli draws on Caucasian culture, classical European music and jazz beats to carve out his own unique brand of music. A protégé of the great Ahmad Jamal, this young pianist is an artist and composer to be reckoned with. His art of improvisation, inherited from the mugham tradition, places him among the most innovative music-makers today, at the crossroads between East and West.

You can tell right after the first two bars of this album what the legendary pianist Ahamad Jamal saw in Shahin Novrasli that he’d desire to produce the young man’s album. With gentle nudging support by James Cammack/b, Andre Ceccarelli/dr and Erekle Koiva/perc, Novrasli uses reflective dashes of notes with a judicious use of space on this richly textured album. Reflective and thoughtful, he demonstrates his ability to deliver nimble rapid runs as on “Misri Blues,” and gets cocktail funky on the hip “Tittle Tattle.” Koiva, Cammack and Ceccarelli are like impressionistic oil painters as the bring dots and dashes as well as deft quicks strokes to fill in the gaps on Novrasli’s reflective touches on the title track and the moody shadows of “Yellow Nightingale.” Didier Lockwood brings some atmospheric violin strings to the quiet drapery of “Saga” as well as the elliptical “Ancient P arallel” which features Cammack’s palpable fingerwork. A dash of Jamal for the 21st Century, and his logical extension.