For Gyumri

amazing, mesmerizing, Tigran is a musical genius. Love this CD. His music hypnotizes and takes you away. Bravo Tigran!

As always

Awesome music!

With the 2020 release of The Call Within, the jazz world is starting to turn to Tigran Hamasyan as a rising star on the jazz piano scene. Hamasyan fully earns the accolades he receives, and as his star rises, adventurous listeners turn to Hamasyan's fascinating back-catalogue building up to The Call Within. While The Call Within is a thundering album of mathematical times and aggressive melodies, Hamasyan came to it weaving his way through many other worlds, demonstrating that he will continue exploring and never sit still. This is the sign of true genius, and For Gyumri sounds little like The Call Within. For anyone reading after having heard Levitation 21, then, it should be stated that For Gyumri is very different.A sparse album, consisting largely of Hamasyan's piano and some abstract vocalizations, For Gyumri is Hamasyan's statement to his home town in Armenia. Most listeners will not be familiar with Armenian folk music, yet the music is so seamlessly interwoven with jazz that the result has more of the feel of simply being exploratory jazz in the best way. Most importantly for the average listener is Hamasyan's use of dynamic range. There is so much movement within such a short EP, lasting only half an hour, that a listener will feel as though taken on a journey. And exciting journey, filled with not only placid and peaceful moments, but tension and excitement, and even artistic danger in the risk-taking sense. The most boring of jazz musicians play within established realms. Hamasyan does not. Part of it is that merely incorporating Armenian themes gives his music a different aspect, but part of it is that there is such dynamic range that at times, the music can feel as though it will fly apart, were it not for the control of such a mind.That is why the movement works, within the album. How does Hamasyan accomplish so much within 30 short minutes? Because he is Tigran Hamasyan. He is astonishing. There are other European jazz pianists, like Milcho Leviev and Laszlo Gardony, who find ways to incorporate their roots into more established forms, but as great as these musicians are, the scope of their vision is surpassed by Hamasyan. Understand what high praise this is. Hamasyan just does not really have any peers.

GUT

ティグラン・ハマシアンの音楽性がほとばしるアルバムで、愛聴しています