Amina Figarova: Setting stories to music

Originally published at MinnPost.com on September 2, 2009

The lyrical, expressive, passionate pianist/composer Amina Figarova has just been booked at the Dakota for one night only—Thursday, September 1. I interviewed her two years ago, shortly before she played her first Dakota date. Her current tour of eight US cities will begin at the Dakota and go from there to the Fox Jazz Festival in Menasha, WI (Sept. 3), the Detroit Jazz Festival (Sept. 4), the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago (Sept. 7), the WDCB Jazz Salon in Oak Brook (Sept. 8), Trio's in South Bend, IN (Sept. 9), the Puffin Foundation in Teaneck, NJ (Sept. 10), and the Metropolitan Room in NYC (Sept. 11). In Teaneck and NYC, Figarova and her band will perform September Suite, her musical response to the events of September 11, 2001. She travels with a telepathic band: husband Bart Platteau on flutes, Ernie Hammes on trumpet, Mark Mommaas on tenor saxophone (three wind instruments!), Jeroen Vierdag on bass, and Chris "Buckshot" Strik on drums. Catch them if you can.

This interview was originally published at MinnPost.com on September 2, 2009.

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Amina Figarova: Setting stories to music

Visit pianist/composer Amina Figarova’s website and you’ll find the words “Music is a natural not a national language.” This must include jazz, or Figarova’s own life is hard to explain. How else could a girl born in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan grow up trained as a classical musician, start a career as a classical concert pianist, and then, in her mid-20s, switch to jazz?

“My mother loved jazz, and she was always telling me, ‘You have that in you,’” Figarova said by phone earlier this week from her home in the Netherlands. “I was writing and playing classical music, so I never took seriously what she was saying. Every time I went to a jazz concert or festival, I was wishing I could do it but never felt I could.

Amina Figarova Sextet

When: Saturday, June 28, 2008 • Where: Peavey Plaza • Who: Amina Figarova, piano; Marc Mommaas, tenor saxophone; Alex Pope Norris, trumpet; Bart Platteau, flute; Phil Palombi, bass; Tim Horner, drums



Our attendance at this year’s Twin Cities Jazz Festival is pathetic. We see several of the club shows but miss nearly all of the free outdoor shows except for Jerry Gonzalez and the Fort Apache Band on Friday, June 20, and part of the Dakota Combo’s second set earlier today. We see just enough of Amina Figarova that I kick myself for not coming to Peavey Plaza sooner.

Born in Azerbaijan, first trained as a classical pianist, Figarova now lives in Rotterdam, composing and performing and recording jazz. She ended up in Minneapolis in June because she was on a US tour that started in Erie, PA and brought her to Chicago last night. She’s with a sextet that includes her husband, flautist Bart Platteau. (We learn later that he plays flute exclusively, not saxophone and flute, as many jazz musicians do.) Saxophonist Mommaas was raised in Amsterdam and is now based in NYC; trumpeter Norris is out of Reston, VA; Tim Horner (I’m guessing) is from the states. Palombi is also based in NYC. We’ve met him and spoken with him before but didn’t know he’d be here with Figarova. After the set we have the chance to hang out a while and catch up.



I don’t hear enough of Figarova’s live set to offer more than a few impressions. She’s slight and exotic but strong on the keys, and she swings. (Like Barbara Dennerlein, who was here earlier this week.) Her music is stormy and dreamy and full of melody. I bring home her latest CD, September Suite. Figarova was living in Brooklyn when the towers fell on 9/11, and this all-original work, based on her own experiences following the attack, is heartbreaking and uplifting, art rising from the ashes. (Like Terence Blanchard’s A Tale of God’s Will rose from the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina.) I want to hear more of this wonderful pianist.

Hear Amina Figarova on Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz.
Photos by John Whiting.