Hafez Modirzadeh: Facets

The third Pi release by tenor saxophonist/composer/theorist Hafez Modirzadeh is a disconcerting and dazzling series of meditations on musical forms and cultural traditions, with Modirzadeh enlisting pianists Kris Davis, Craig Taborn, and Tyshawn Sorey (well known as a percussionist) while integrating Western equal temperament with variations on Persian tunings and tones. Playing a piano on which pitches have been lowered on eight keys in the register above middle C, each pianist explores the territory where notes that sound “right” and “wrong” to Eurocentric ears rub against one another and ultimately merge into a new, strangely beautiful system. Modirzadeh, who has researched Makam harmonization in Turkey, Flamenco in Andalucía, and Gnawa in Morocco, plays his tenor closely-miked, amplifying breath and pad taps, and further rounding the lustrous tone. The instrument can sound like a snake charmer’s flute, a Qawwali singer, or Ben Webster morphing into Albert Ayler. Following these 18 tracks of Modirzadeh compositions, free improvisations, and treatments of Thelonious Monk’s “Ask Me Now” and “Pannonica” and Bach’s “Goldberg Variation No. 25” is like meandering slowly through hallways of funhouse distorting mirrors. You might exit disoriented, enthralled, and enlightened.