Jazz gem unearthed: Vagif Mustafazade's rare tape recording

A new tape recording of Vagif Mustafazade, the legend of Azerbaijani jazz music, has been found, Azernews reports citing Azertag.

Director of the Rashid Behbudov Foundation Kamil Shahverdi informed about this on his social network account. It is reported that the tape recording was discovered by Tofig Hasansoy, a singer and connoisseur of jazz music.

This piece, performed in one of Vagif Mustafazade's last concerts in 1979, belongs to the head of the Department of Composition at Baku Music Academy, Professor Ayd?n Azim Karimoglu.

The composition "A fantasy about Aydin K. Azim" was performed by V. Mustafazade and his friends, Alasgar Abbasov (lives in Turkiye) on guitar, Parviz Adib (lives in Germany) on percussion and Nazim Guliyev on bass guitar.

"I am proud to present to you for the first time the masterpiece fantasy performed 45 years ago. Thanks to our valuable friend, expert connoisseur and propagandist of jazz music Tofig Hasansoy for revealing this tape!," Kamil Shahverdi wrote in his post.

Note that Tofig Hasansoy is currently working on a book about Vagif Mustafazade.

"I am busy translating numerous newspaper articles and interviews about Vagif Mustafazade from Russian into our native language. I would like to publish a book for Vagif Mustafazade's 85th anniversary next year. I have also set myself the goal of presenting an album consisting of tape recordings of the maestro's live performance at the "Tallinn - 66" and "Tallinn - 67" jazz festivals," he said.

Born in 1940, outstanding composer, pianist, founder of the jazz-mugham style, Honored Artist of the Azerbaijani SSR, and laureate of the State Prize Vagif Mustafazade received his first musical education at music school, where his mother Zivar Aliyeva worked.

From 1957 to 1963, he continued his education at the Asaf Zeynalli music school. In 1964, he entered the Uzeyir Hajibayli Azerbaijani State Conservatoire.

In 1965, the musician was invited to Tbilisi as the musical director of the famous Orero ensemble, and in the same year, he created the Caucasus jazz trio at the Georgian Philharmonic. In 1967, he attended the International Jazz Festival in Tallinn.

In 1970, Vagif Mustafazade created the Leyli vocal quartet, and in 1971 – Sevil vocal-instrumental ensemble under the State Radio.

Vagif Mustafazade became a laureate of the jazz festival in Donetsk in 1977. He was awarded the title of laureate and best pianist at the jazz festival (1978) in Tbilisi.

He also took first place as the best composer at the International Competition of Jazz Composers in Monaco (1979) for his composition "Waiting for Aziza" and won the White Grand Piano award.

In the same year, he was awarded the honorary title of Honored Artist of Azerbaijan.

Mustafazade combined Azerbaijani mughams with traditional jazz techniques, creating a synthesis of mugham and jazz.

Similar innovations made by him in Azerbaijani music are still relevant, and many musicians use the synthesis of jazz and mugham created by the composer.