While out shopping for more CD’s and MP3 collections yesterday, I couldn’t resist buying a copy of Dance of Fire by Aziza Mustafa Zadeh for a very good friend of mine. Saying this is bound to get me into trouble, but what the heck. My choice of present was greeted with approval from the young female shop assistant even though Mustafa Zadeh is perhaps Azerbaijan’s most famous contemporary jazz star. Of course, she’s fortunate enough to have a considerable musical pedigree behind her.

I was born into the world of jazz, and more specifically into the world of “mugam,” a form of traditional, improvisational music in Azerbaijan. It seems quite natural that I became a jazz performer with such a background. My father, Vagif Mustafa Zadeh, was legendary for his jazz improvisation. He became known as the founder of the Azerbaijani Mugam Jazz Movement that evolved in the late 60s and 70s.

In 1978, my dad represented the Soviet Union at the World Jazz Festival in Monaco and took first prize. Dizzy Gillespie, a famous black jazz trumpeter who had himself contributed so much to the modern jazz movement, used to say, “Vagif’s music is from another planet! It’s the music of the future!” And my mother, known as Eliza Khanom, is incredibly talented in music, too. She was one of the first to sing in the new mugam jazz style. How fortunate to have been born into such a family.

Not sure if my friend will like the music, but anyway. It’s a fantastic album, and not least because Al di Meola, Bill Evans, Stanley Clarke, Omar Hakim and others serve as her backing band. Quite a lineup for any jazz musician.

Perhaps it is this uncommon self-assuredness that led to her last recording with a great many fusion greats assembled to play her compositions. Al Di Meola plays guitar, Bill Evans, sax. Stanley Clarke, no less, takes up the bass while Omar Hakim drums. An astonishing group of musicians to be playing on a 25 year old’s album. I asked if she had been intimidated by the company she had been keeping. “No. Not at all. In fact, I think I intimidated them a little. It took a lot of time to record and the music was very different. We had to stay up long hours and even then we recorded for the best part of a month.”

Anyway, good to see that music can actually cross geopolitical borders, especially when the two countries in question are Armenia and Azerbaijan. Incidently, I met Mustafa Zadeh when her concert at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall almost a decade ago was considered the musical event of the week by Time Out magazine. Great gig, and I was even interviewed by the Azeri section of the BBC’s World Service about the concert.

Had the possibility to interview Mustafa Zadeh as well, but didn’t follow up on my initial conversation with her press people. I still regret that. Interestingly, many local jazz musicians of all ages in Armenia have a high appreciation of both Aziza and Vagif Mustafa Zadeh. Nice to see her albums available in Yerevan.