The Azerbaijani pianist, composer and arranger, who studied at the renowned album “Planet” for April 30th 2021. You can already get an impression of his eclectic style of jazz with the music video for the title track. In
the solo piano passage of the two-part title track, Sarabski sounds as if he was secretly trying to play jazz in the style of Rachmaninoff. A free snapshot meets hidden cadences auditory impression. Isfar Sarabski combines the experimentation of Nils Frahm
with the dreamlike of Olafur Arnalds, the electronic explorations of Martin Kohlstedt with the symphonic brilliance of Max Richter and the jazz virtuosity of Herbie Hancock. During his scholarship at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Sarabski impressed fellow students and teachers alike with his curious and impressionism, the folklore tradition of his homeland and the exploration of electronic soundscapes. For him, genre boundaries are only there to connect them with one another through musical
bridges. Among other things, Sarabski adapted the music of Sophie Hunger (“Le Vent Nous Portera”), expanded the geography of his acoustic works by collaborating with the Tunisian singer and oud player Dhafer Youssef and signed up for collaborations with leading members of Baku’s Club Scene together. The path that Sarabski has been following for over two decades was laid in his childhood. His mother is a violin teacher and his father is a great music connoisseur who, in addition to jazz, rock, soul
and funk, also appreciates Bach, Brahms and Beethoven. And his great-grandfather Huseyngulu Sarabski was revered in the Orient as a music pioneer, opera singer, musician, actor and playwright. Music is unquestionably an important part of Isfar Sarabski’s genes. “My father’s vinyl records were literally my toys,” he recalls. “I was fascinated by the mechanics of the turntable, by the large black discs, and of course by the world of tones, harmonies and rhythms that revealed themselves. I remember
exactly the feelings that my first perception of Dizzy Gillespie records, or recordings of the works of Bach and Chopin, triggered in me. How could it be that music could create images in my head? I had to find out”.