Tigran, Shadow Theater

I'll be honest. I am anyway. I need an assistant. Someone to log in what I get in the mail, who sent it, the date received, my reactions to it and when and then when it's reviewed if it makes it to that stage. Truth is, it's not an assistant I need. I need to keep going the way I am. But I need to thin out the number of CDs I cover just a tad. There are too many good ones coming in, far more than I can process as one person. Nonetheless I am glad for that problem. It is a good sign for the health of music making.

Like today's album, that I like very much. Tigran. Shadow Theater (self-released). It's been waiting patiently to come up in the queue. Now it has. Turns out I love it but WTF? So I go to Tigran's Facebook page. Oh, OK. Tigran Hamasyan. Born in Armenia (ah, that's what I am hearing, that beautifully melodic influence). Plays the keys and composed the songs. He's lived in LA since 2003.

Is this jazz? What do I care? It's beautiful songwriting in a sort of very lyrical progressive mode and maybe it's called jazz because it's so good? But then you get to hear Tigran solo and you get where that is coming from.

I don't care. No guitars here, much. So shoot me. I put it on this blog page because people into songs and guitars and such need to hear it.

Perhaps it does for Armenian roots what Airto did for Brazil? Maybe. But it's more transformative. It has complex parts that cross prog-fuse, minimalism and Armenain lyricism? Yes.

It's very involved and very beautiful music. Grab a copy if you like melodic hipness! I love it! I tell you no lie.

Aram Bajakian's Kef: Guitarist Introduces the Armenian Tinge

Generally anything that comes out on Tzadik Records, I've found, is a musical gift, something nobody else covers much, if at all. The recent release Aram Bajakian's Kef (Tzadik) falls right in with that idea. It's a most interesting ensemble headed by guitarist Bajakian. He and his bandmates combine traditional Armenian sounds with electric rock elements, fusionoid organicism, and a bit of avant downtown noise-skronk. Shanir Blumenkranz joins on acoustic and electric bass, oud and gimri, while violinist Tom Swafford rounds out the group with world village-meets-the Village savvy.

There are acoustic forays of great beauty, energetic dance-form Armeniana and journeys into more abstracted rock territory. Nobody is out to wow you with machine-gun virtuosity but the thoroughgoing musical vision comes off with superb musicianship and fully creative attention to form and expression.

It's part of what so-called fusion has become in New York in recent years, a world music that is cosmopolitan and urban, that takes on the centuries-old incorporation of ethnically distinct elements into a big-apple cauldron of performativity and makes it all new again.

This is an excellent set that will satisfy your need for a different musical approach that revels in difference. Recommended!