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TOIR KUZIYEV TRIO feat. HECTOR ZAZOU (Uzbekistan / France)
Hector Zazou is an Alchemist of the sound.
His great love are Voices and like nobody else he makes us beleeve not to know or understand any thing about but to have an incredible feeling for it.
“In England they have Peter Gabriel, in America they have David Byrne, in France we have Hector Zazou”
Jean-Francois Bizot
A few years ago, Hector Zazou traveled to Uzbekistan for the British label Real World. He went there to produce the first album of Sevara Nazarkhan, a young singer who admires both the traditional music of her country, and Bjork or Madonna.
During Sevara's recording sessions, Hector met Toir Kuziyev, an extraordinary doutar player. Both of them started to develop a number of ideas that they were able to record, first in Tashkent and then in Bath, at the Real World studio. They tried to find a new way to marry traditional acoustic music and electronic music.
The next step was to involve two other musicians which could open the field of sonic possibilities. A violin player from India and a oud player from Algeria (Mehdi Haddab, ex Ekova and Duoud) would add different flavors. The trio explores unknown territories, enlarging the definition of modes and styles, inventing a new vocabulary.
Hector Zazou's involvement is the final move. He is taking what the three musicians are giving and send it back to them with a soulful supplement. The use of electronics -like using a church for Gregorian chants-thus becomes a determining element and reinforces the spirituality of the music. This is what Strings of sand is about.
"The musician's strings are taken into a sort of "hall of mirrors" , explains Hector zazou, where, like in Orson Welles' film "The Lady from Shangai" the sound is reflected from one note to the next and forms a sort of dune that pushes the instrumentalist to plunge under the surface, straight toward the very heart of the sound; inside of himself.
The concert is divided into two parts:
1 Musics from the silk road (the acoustic trio)
2 Deserts (the trio + Hector Zazou)
HECTOR ZAZOU
"If music cannot change the world, what use does it have?"
This is the question raised by Hector Zazou, one of the most innovative and unpredictable French composers, as the versatility of his career demonstrates: rock music (the band Barricades), French impressionist music (the duet ZNR) or traditional African music (three albums with Bony Bikaye)... Hector Zazou has a surprise waiting with each new composition. Whether it be for string quartet, wind instruments, classical voices or synthesizers, all illustrate his passion for the most unexpected inventions.
The album "Les Nouvelles Polyphonies Corses" (1991- is yet another successful experiment blending century-old a-cappella songs with shades of contemporary music performed by Zazou and occasional collaborators such as Jon Hassell, Manu Di Bango, Richard Horowitz, Ryuichi Sakamoto and John Cale. The following year Hector's "Sahara Blue" was released: the album, based on the work of the French poet Arthur Rimbaud and performed by the Sahara Blue Orchestra stars David Sylvian, Bill Laswell, Khaled, Dead Can Dance, Gerard Depardieu among other guests. Inspired by the musical folk traditions of the Northern Hemisphere, Hector's next adventure was "Songs From The Cold Seas" (1995), a literal journey through Siberian Shamanism, Scandinavian folk songs, Japanese ballads and Greenland mythology featuring an impressive cast of musicians including Varttina, Tokiko Kako, Suzanne Vega, Bjork, Siouxsie and Jane Siberry. Released in 1998, "Lights In The Dark" – an exploration of ancient sacred Celtic music from the XIIth century featured some of the most beautiful Irish voices (Katie Mc Mahon, Breda Mayock and Lasairfhiona Ni Chonaola), a gospel choir and guest appearances by Mark Isham, Carlos Nunez, Caroline Lavelle or Peter Gabriel. A successful tour followed in France (Printemps de Bourges), Italy and Switzerland (Montreux Jazz Festival). Recorded with American singer Sandy Dillon, "Las Vegas Is Cursed" (2001) saw the return of Hector Zazou to electricity and experimentation (A flabbergasting baroque opera, a series of intriguing sonic scenes mixing electronic rock and altered chamber music (Keyboards Magazine).
This amazingly rich and eclectic career brings to light the pioneering aspect of Zazou's unique approach and confirms his position in the foreground of the world music scene.
In 2003 Hector Zazou composed an original soundtrack for Carl-Theodor Dreyer’s “la Passion de Jeanne d’Arc” while his new album “Strong Currents” was released, a collection of acoustic songs that was the fruit of several years of work (with Jane Birkin, Lisa Germano, Laurie Anderson…). Spring 2004 saw the release of “L’Absence”; an electronic twin of “Strong Currents”. He was then commissionned (by cine-mix and Le Forum Des images in Paris) to compose another original soundtrack, this time for Robert Flaherty documentary “Nanouk Of The North”.
Hector Zazou has proven himself as a creative force behind several unsual projects, as a unique musical arranger and producer called upon for his constant capacity of innovation. He has been commissionned to write pieces for strings ensembles (By the Balanescu Quartet), contemporary dance performances or for the opening night festivities of the 1998 football world cup.
Hector Zazou’s inventiveness as a producer has lead him to work with numerous artists among them Tibetan singer Yungchen Lhamo (Real World Records), Galician bagpipes player Carlos Nunez, Uzbek singer Sevara Nazarkhan (Yol Bolsin, Real World Records) etc.
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