Modirzadeh, a director of the jazz/ world music program at San Francisco State University, presents a varied set of material on this album, befitting his interests.
He opens with three small group sides of jazz standards, which he explores movingly on tenor sax in searching style, with modal, eastern-based concepts of the type that influenced Coltrane.
The second set is “Stick Suite,” composed by Nima Rezai, with Modirzadeh on tenor, soprano and flute, and Rezai achieving spacey effects on the Chapman stick. Finally, there’s the “Karna Passages”, multi-layered tracks of Modirzadeh on Iranian woodwind karna instruments.
Through it all, Modirzadeh displays a competent, personal synthesis of jazz and folkloric styles that is worth hearing.
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