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Hafez Modirzadeh

HAFEZ MODIRZADEH (aka Hafez Modir - woodwinds and flutes) has published and recorded extensively on an original cross-cultural musical approach he terms "chromodal", from which he received a Ph.D. from Wesleyan University, and lectures on internationally. Hafez' horn playing is deeply rooted in the legacy of African-American musical traditions, yet is also compelled by his Persian heritage. Hafez creates melodies that adapt Middle Eastern and African-American sources into an intelligent and most original melodic conception. His invention of the "chromodal" method allows for a nonlinear improvisational practice that is able to adapt to and incorporate multiple systems of music, permitting a cross-cultural "conversation."

Twice an NEA Jazz Fellow ('89, '91), Modir was granted a Fulbright to work with Gnawan and Flamenco musicians in Morocco and Andalucia, in 2005-06, which resulted in his latest CD, "Bemsha Alegria" (available on Disques Chromodal, at www.hafezmodir.com). Currently a full-time faculty at San Francisco State University, Dr. Modirzadeh directs the World Music and Dance Program and has performed with Don Cherry, Zakir Hussein, Steve Lacy, Oliver Lake, James Newton, Leo Smith, Omar Sosa, and many Asian and Asian American musical artists such as Fred Ho, Liu Chi Chao, Danongan Kalanduyan, Mark Izu, Anthony Brown, Akira Tana, and Kenny Endo.

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7
Album Review

Warriors of the Wonderful Sound: Soundpath

Read "Soundpath" reviewed by Mark Corroto


If we alter President John F. Kennedy's 1962 moon spaceflight speech just a bit, it easily fits the big band adaptation of Muhal Richard Abrams' magnum opus Soundpath, “We choose to perform this composition not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept." Accepting the challenge was band leader Bobby Zankel and ...

6
Album Review

Hafez Modirzadeh: Facets

Read "Facets" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian


Innovative composer and saxophonist Hafez Modirzadeh has always pushed the idiomatic envelope in his work. His eighth release as a leader, the stimulating Facets is, as hinted on the cover art, a musical kaleidoscope. Consisting of 18 short tracks the album explores various time signatures, modes and tonal colors that fuse many musical traditions. Three equally idiosyncratic artists take turns for a set of solos and duets with Modirzadeh. “Facet Sorey," for instance, is a crystalline tune with ...

2
Album Review

Warriors of the Wonderful Sound: Soundpath

Read "Soundpath" reviewed by Giuseppe Segala


Nel 2011 il sassofonista di Filadelfia Bobby Zankel, leader della big band The Warriors of the Wonderful Sound e promotore di laboratori di musica contemporanea, propose a Muhal Richard Abrams un lavoro compositivo che avrebbe dovuto essere affidato alla band, con la direzione dello stesso pianista. Operazioni di questo tipo erano già state realizzate da Zankel negli anni precedenti con le musiche per big band di Julius Hemphill, dirette da Marty Ehrlich, poi con composizioni di Rudresh Mahanthappa e Steve ...

7
Album Review

Hafez Modirzadeh with Kris Davis, Tyshawn Sorey and Craig Taborn: Facets

Read "Facets" reviewed by Troy Dostert


A rigorous, sometimes imposingly cerebral innovator, tenor saxophonist Hafez Modirzadeh has dedicated himself since the 1980s to ever more ambitious ways of opening up the Western musical tradition to scrutiny. A particular obsession is the restrictive quality of conventional instrumental tunings, which, as Modirzadeh perceives them, can limit the possibilities available to improvisers and composers alike, especially when contrasted with the less confining musical traditions of the Middle East. One of his pathbreaking efforts in this regard was his Radif ...

10
Extended Analysis

Soundpath

Read "Soundpath" reviewed by Victor L. Schermer


Muhal Richard Abrams (1930-2017) was a revered pianist, composer and teacher of great capability and range who, in addition to his own achievements, inspired and influenced many jazz musicians in both the mainstream and avant-garde categories. Largely self-taught as a result of a personal decision to follow his own path, and early on pursuing church music, big band, blues, bebop and avant-garde jazz in his home city of jny: Chicago, he grasped music from its roots, and so was able ...

2
Album Review

Hafez Modirzadeh: In Convergence Liberation

Read "In Convergence Liberation" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro


Inciso nel 2011 riunendo pagine tutte a firma del multistrumentista di origine iraniana (ma nato a Durham, Carolina del Nord, nel 1962) Hafez Modirzadeh, questo lavoro è per più di un verso emblematico di come si possa far felicemente convivere ambizioni compositive post-accademiche, seduzioni di memoria etnica e pruriti jazzistici di stampo contemporaneo.Vi trovano posto cinque brani singoli e tre suite ("Karna Passages," “Suite Compost" e “Sor Juana," rispettivamente in tre, quattro e sei movimenti), il tutto su ...

8
Album Review

Hafez Modirzadeh: In Convergence Liberation

Read "In Convergence Liberation" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


Is music truly a universal language? That's a question that's a bit complicated to answer. While music has the potential to be a universal language, and it remains a common platform of communication for so many, it hasn't really fulfilled that potential thus far. Regional accents and dialects still abound, isolating and separating listeners and performers into different cliques and communities. Every fully functioning human ear can certainly take everything in, regardless of what tunings, scales, and rhythmic structures are ...

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All Music Guide "Saxophonist Hafez Modirzadeh is unlike any other ... "Saxophonist Hafez Modirzadeh is unlike any other player or composer out there. His relationship to the musical whole on his recordings is an approach that carries within it a host of contradictions, especially as it engages Eastern modalism and European chromaticism. This set, which is earmarked by the truly lovely "Tetrapath: Music," (which earmarks the entire proceeding) is a concept on the union of these two pursuits and how they play out, not only in jazz and improvised music, but in the languages folk musics, and how they inform and engage one another through the general vision of cultures and the particular gaze of musicians

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Primary Instrument

Saxophone, tenor

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Facets

Pi Recordings
2021

buy

Soundpath

Clean Feed Records
2020

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In Convergence...

Pi Recordings
2015

buy

In Convergence...

Pi Recordings
2014

buy

Post-Chromodal Out!

Pi Recordings
2012

buy

Radif Suite

Pi Recordings
2010

buy

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