Peoples Blues

Hafez Modirzadeh | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 29, 1996)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: X Dot 25
• ASIN: B000005J9E
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #635,166 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Peoples' Blues

2. Song Unknown

3. Native Paradox, Pt. 1: Tradition

4. Native Paradox, Pt. 2: Transformation

5. Labriz

6. Lehran, Pt. I: Regime

7. Lehran, Pt. II: Discontent

8. Lehran, Pt. III: Revolution

9. Lehran, Pt. IV: Mourning

10. Mashhad

11. Sama

12. Akan

13. Irama

14. Rasa

15. Nava-Ye-Mardom

Editorial Reviews

A complex and fascinating release from saxophonist Modirzadeh, whose view of world music is totally original. Composing and performing in the modern jazz arena for over a decade, touring and recording on an international level, and performing collaborations with Fred Ho’s Afro-Asian Ensemble, and Peter Apfelbaum’s Hieroglyphics Ensemble with Don Cherry have given a platform to Hafez’ highly personalized style of writing and playing. He is the recipient of several National Endowment of the Arts grants, one of which lead to the debut of "The Peoples Blues", the first Persian-American jazz suite.

Style/Genre: World Jazz

Instrumentation: Tenor & Soprano Saxophones, Persian Tuned Piano, Bass Clarinet, Alto Flute, Drums, Bass, Guitar & Effects, Tombak, Daf.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!, July 9, 2010

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This review is from: Peoples Blues (Audio CD)

This is a great CD. I bought it for a penny on Amazon! The music here is largely acoustic, with nice, simple production (no overly-produced fluff here!). I appreciate that. A lot of great performers are putting out very bland, over-produced music these days because the latest technology enables them to make a "perfect" sounding recording that comes off sounding sterile and soulless. It is refreshing to hear something that sounds as if the musicans are actually playing live in the room with me.
This is really solid world music jazz, with Persian scales and the kind of high-end jazz you would expect from the ECM recordings of the early 1970s. It is exotic, meditative, and engaging, with a bit of dissonance mixed in here and there.
This is also a really generous CD, with something like 74 minutes of music, representing a wonderful array of sounds and ideas. It sounds like a mix of early Sun Ra and Yusef Lateef, with wonderful Persian elements tossed in to make it unique.
The only criticism I can think of is that the printing quality on the packaging is lousy. You can barely read the text and the resolution on the cover photo is pretty poor. It comes off like a home-made recording, with printing done at Kinkos on a color copier. Other than that, however, I have nothing but good things to say about this CD.