Prizewinner Brings Jazz Moves to TriBeCa

November 22, 2006
The New York Times

Tigran Hamasyan, winner of this year’s Thelonious Monk jazz piano competition, in concert on Monday.

By NATE CHINEN

Two months ago, when Tigran Hamasyan won first place at the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition, he confirmed several things about the current state of jazz. First off, it’s in great shape, in terms of global influence and youthful vigor: Mr. Hamasyan, who is not yet 20, enjoys a comfortably casual relationship with the folk music of his native Armenia. Second, it’s in not-so-great shape, in terms of infrastructure: there’s little chance that Mr. Hamasyan’s distinction could lead to a major-label contract, as it has for winners of the Monk competition in the (ever receding) past.

Finally and most important, the music itself maintains a healthy remove from these and other speculative concerns. Mr. Hamasyan unfurls no banners with his playing, though it can often convey the jubilant power of an anthem. His main interests are exploratory, especially when it comes to rhythm. He situates his piano not at the forefront of an ensemble but deep within it, so that the momentum he generates is centrifugal.

Mr. Hamasyan, a student at the University of Southern California, applied his powers of concentration to two distinct settings on Monday night. He began the evening as the featured artist at a concert affiliated with the Monk Institute at the TriBeCa Performing Arts Center, with François Moutin on bass and Ari Hoenig on drums. A few hours later, he turned up at Smalls, as a sideman in a quintet led by Mr. Hoenig.

Naturally the concert, with its mix of traditional and original material, provided the broadest view of Mr. Hamasyan’s potential. He approached nearly every tune as an arc, beginning in contemplation and building to a crashing fury. This was an intuitive style for Mr. Moutin and Mr. Hoenig, who dove headlong into action, responding instantly to Mr. Hamasyan’s turns of phrase.

On “These Houses,” adapted from an Armenian folk song, and “World Passion,” the title track of Mr. Hamasyan’s new debut album (issued by Nocturne, a Paris-based label), the trio worked expressively with fluttering polyrhythm. Their sound evoked the recent acoustic efforts of Chick Corea, whose percussive pianism Mr. Hamasyan intermittently deployed in his improvisations, along with emphatic chordal stabs and two-handed octave filigree.

The concert was bookended by standards — “Just Friends” and “What Is This Thing Called Love?” — that Mr. Hamasyan had revised with shuddering syncopations. The arrangements were essentially cubist, disconcertingly fragmentary but still representative of their sources. Less clever but equally engaging was a version of Monk’s “In Walked Bud,” set in a waltzlike 5/4 meter that elicited Mr. Hamasyan’s most agile solo turn.

Perhaps by coincidence, Mr. Hoenig later applied the same floating pulse to a ballad, “Tenderly,” during his first set at Smalls. There too, Mr. Hamasyan was fluid and self- assured. He convincingly sight-read a couple of Mr. Hoenig’s tunes and generally settled into the pace of the ensemble, which was less insistent than his own.

Then Mr. Hoenig ended the set by calling up Mr. Moutin (to replace his regular bassist, Matt Penman), and lending Mr. Hamasyan the reins. And together they played “The Rain Is Coming,” another Armenian song, with a bright and surging exuberance.


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