The art of the cosmic game
In the highest spheres, all earthly boundaries dissolve. And that is exactly where "Cycle" plays. This is where three usually incompatible instruments - organ, saxophone and piano - speak with one voice. It is not the first time that these worlds collide. On the ECM album "Aftenland", Jan Garbarek and Kjell Johnsen already explored the rugged interfaces between organ and saxophone at the end of the 70s. Rain Sultanov and Isfar Sarabski, on the other hand, tend to create a meditative, radiantly bright energy space - aptly named as the "Land of Fire" for their common home country of Azerbaijan.
This is much more than just music. The title already refers to Rudolph Steiner's idea that our life evolves over seven cycles, from the moment we conceive to dissolution in death. "Cycle" now extends this model to the rebirth of soul and body. Each of the instruments involved plays a clearly defined role in this cosmic game: the organ stands for the majestic and sacred. The saxophone for our deepest feelings. The piano contains a connecting, evolutionary element.
But "Cycle" never becomes pure conceptual art. Compared to Sultanov's epic, three-hour history project "Tale of My Land", it seems almost modest. Rather, the nine pieces are laid out as carefully-touching and slow-motion sustained slow-motion compositions full of hope and confidence. Not darkness, but light rules here: you can almost hear the sunbeams that fall through the windows of the Gothic Church of the Redeemer in Baku, where the album was recorded.
Of course, it was to be expected that even this deeply felt music could not provide conclusive truths. So the search continues for Sultanov and Sarabski - in ever new cycles of question and answer, doubt and confidence, of silence and sound.
Three instruments: Organ, piano, saxophone. The two leading jazz performers of Azerbaijan. One intense, light flooded energy space. No limits.
1 Prelude
2 Embryo
3 Planet
4 Tandem
5 Symbiosis
6 Orison
7 Oblivion
8 Reincarnation
9 Silence
