Until I find a way to resolve the issues regarding posting on Facebook, I’ll be forced to use screenshots and trust that if you want to hear the music, you will go to amiscellany.info.
In the meantime, enjoy a performance by Azerbaijani mugham vocalist Alim Qasimov, along with Turkish clarinetist Hüsnü Şenlendirici, Azerbaijani kamanche player Rauf Islamov and French brass master Michel Godard.
There isn’t much information about the powerful ethno-folk-metal-ish troupe Eastern Lord. They’re either from Azerbaijan or Azerbaijanis residing in Sweden. What is important is that they play a powerful music heavily affected by their Caucasian roots.
Yet another entertaining and utterly essential compilation of music from the Caucasus has been released by my favorite ethnic music label currently active, Ored Recordings. Many thanks to Bulat Khalilov for his brilliant work in digging up these gems which would otherwise be lost to history. Azerbaijan is a country with stellar traditions in music and storytelling, and it is my hope that Ored can continue to bring artists like this to the fore.
Outside of Vagif Mustafa-Zade, who has been featured here before on this blog, there’s not a lot of information on music from Azerbaijan. Sevil is a band who played a type of jazz-funk which was popular throughout the Soviet Bloc. Really solid music.
If any of my friends from the region could point me to some biographical data about the band, I’d be most thankful.
I’m sure you weren’t expecting to hear rap from Azerbaijan here. Fortunately, I take plunges where most won’t go.
Xpert is the local Eminem clone, and his flow isn’t bad at all. Add traditional Azeri music in the mix, and this turns out to be quite good listening.
Those who know me well, say, for at least 15 years, know that I have tried throughout my life to be a champion for Soviet Jazz. They had something exquisite that the world didn’t have full access to until the end of Communism. One of these treasures hailed from Azerbaijan.
With the passing of B. B. King a few days ago, I was reminded of a story when the legendary blues guitarist came to the Soviet Union to watch a jazz festival. After seeing Vagif Mustafa Zade play, he named the stunned pianist as the ‘true king of the blues’. Vagif would die at age 35 in 1979, suffering a heart attack while performing onstage at a concert in Uzbekistan.
May his memory be eternal.
Many thanks to Funked Up East for their incredible selection of Soviet music.
Before Dagestan, in southern Russia, became a worthless subsidiary for radical Islamists, it was producing some rather amazing musicians and composers of note. Murad Kazhlaev (sometimes transliterated as Murad Kajlayev) hailed originally from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, from a Lak family. He moved on to Dagestan, and would work with the Melodiya Records Orchestra, churning out great jazz like this.
If anyone from Dagestan could give me information on more interesting artists, I’d be indebted.
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