Jazz Connection Magazine

Teen Piano Sensation Eldar Djangirov Brings His Point Of View To The Jazz Arena

Eighteen-year-old Eldar Djangirov, above, is causing quite a stir

in the jazz arena these days with the recent release of his self-

titled debut album for Sony Classical. The teen piano sensation

already has three album to his credit and exhibits maturity,

fertile imagination, and phenomenal technique in his playing.

Eldar Djangirov (pronounced John-GEAR-off) says he owes his life to jazz. The 18-year-old piano phenom émigré from the former Soviet Union with the boyish looks has astounded the jazz arena with his musical maturity, technical fluency, harmonic coloration, and his stunning approach to improvisation and song interpretation. He's created such a buzz since coming on to the American jazz scene seven years ago that some of the all-time greats of jazz have raved about him, including Dr. Billy Taylor, Marian McPartland, and the late Benny Carter.

"Jazz is what I've practiced, what I've lived and breathed since I was five," said Eldar in a telephone conversation from his home in San Diego, CA. "It opened so many opportunities for me. It's something that's always been there for me. It never left me, in the tough times and in the good times. It always seems to accompany everything that I do. That's what I live for. It's the goal. Everything that I have pretty much involves jazz in one way or another. That's what affects my life by far the most."

Jazz has given the brilliant young pianist meaning and purpose in life, and a newly adopted country to boot, where his creative and existential pursuits can develop to the fullest. And jazz aficionados are reaping the benefits. Eldar's self-titled debut CD for Sony Classical was recently released, and already it's causing quite a stir. (See Eldar CD)

If you are thinking, "So what's the big deal? Lots of jazz artists have debut CDs," then check this out - this teen has accomplished something that the vast majority of jazz artists have never done: he landed a contract with a major recording label when he still wasn't old enough to vote! Instead of starting off his musical career as a sideman, as most musicians do, he by-passed all that to become a leader from the get-go. He started recording as a leader while in his mid-teens and has recorded three albums (including his current release) before his eighteenth birthday. Without a doubt, Eldar's tale can rival the best of all Cinderella stories.

"It's been a great opportunity for me," Eldar said. "It's a blast playing with some of the best musicians around, recording and playing concerts around the country. It's like a dream come true."

Eldar's new eleven-track album, recorded in April of last year, is bursting with energy and displays his amazing technique, incredible imagination and expressive maturity on piano and synthesizers in a trio setting while also showcasing his penchant for arranging and composition. The album runs the spectrum of moods and colors, giving the project its own dynamic savoir faire.

"The concept for this album was taking the trio format and exploring it in depth by playing standards, jazz classics and several original tunes," Eldar said. "The material on the album are tunes that I really love playing. I was trying to put my own spin on the original classics as well as on my originals. I just wanted to put my own mark, my own point of view on them."

In fact, Point Of View is the title of one of four original tunes Eldar introduces on the new album. Remaining compositions are Watermelon Island, Lady Wicks, and Raindrops.

Assisting the then-17-year-old jazz sensation on this project are drummer Todd Strait (a veteran of Eldar's previous CD and who works extensively with songstress Karrin Allyson) and Grammy Award winner John Patitucci on acoustic bass and electric bass, with Grammy-winning tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker as guest artist on the torrid workout piece, Point Of View.

Although Strait has played with Eldar since the young pianist was 12, it's quite remarkable - almost unheard of, actually - that two veteran heavy-weight musicians like Patitucci and Brecker, both of whom had never heard of the teen pianist prior to the recording session, would play on his CD.

"The jazz world is both small and big at the same time," Eldar said. "The label provided me with great opportunities. The album's producer, David Lai, helped to get John and Michael aboard. We talked about the musicians I wanted to work with. I always wanted to work with John Patitucci and Michael Brecker. Their positive energies and suggestions during the recordings sessions really helped me."

Having your musical heroes agree to play on your CD would make anyone nervous, and Eldar was no exception.

"They have great personalities and were so full of humor that it was easy to feel comfortable with them" Eldar said. "That's what made it such a great experience. To tell you the truth, they made it so comfortable for me. I sort of forgot how big these guys are. Their warmth overshadowed any nervousness that I had."

Eldar's originals show the teen's sophisticated ability to write challenging pieces of music that's stimulating and pleasant to the ears. He wrote Point Of View with its tricky rhythm changes, just weeks before the recordings session, he said.

"I kept Michael in mind of having him there and his 'point of view,'" Eldar said. "That led me to naming the tune Point Of View. Michael, of course, just ripped it up. It was amazing seeing a master at work."

Raindrops, has a pensive, melancholy flavor to it. The idea for the piece came soon after Eldar moved to San Diego. The splattering raindrops on the car's windshield while driving through town in the rain gave him the inspiration, he said.

"I decided to write a tune about this rain storm as I had just left Kansas City, which had been my home for many years," Eldar said. "The two events were related at the time."

Lady Wicks, a gently flowing sonata of tranquil serenity, was written especially for Virginia Wicks, the noted West Coast publicist.

"She has helped me so much," Eldar said. "I always feel like she's my grandmother."

Eldar's final original, Watermelon Island, is a playful spin on two of Herbie Hancock's early hits: Cantaloupe Island and Watermelon Man, according to Eldar.

With the trio, Eldar plays his own classy arrangements of Fly Me To The Moon, done with a slight boss-nova tinge; Eden Ahbez's Nature Boy, played with exquisite taste and emotion; the high-flying Sweet Georgia Brown, spotlighting Eldar's fleet fingers on the ivories; Hancock's emotionally charged Maiden Voyage; a bouncy version of Bobby Timmon's' Moanin'; and two Thelonious Monk gems: the soothing 'Round Midnight and Ask Me Now, the latter, a quirky solo piano offering.

"Every tune on the album was different," Eldar said about the kinds of things he was hoping to bring out in the reharmonization of the selected jazz standards on his CD. "What I wanted to do was to put an arrangement together to have an overall group sound. I'm always looking for that especially when we play live. I want that as a serious mark as to where we are going and what direction we follow and to just combine sensitivity, discipline and energy to make it happen."

While energy is always a trademark of all of teen pianist's recordings, this latest project, in difference to his previous two albums, shows a much more musically mature Eldar, he said.

"I grew a lot musically," Eldar said. "What I listened to in the past were piano influences like Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Chick Corea, Brad Mehldau, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and many, many more. I'm trying to learn a lot from them. In this album I expanded a lot. I played tunes that I really love playing that were either recent additions or things I've played for a long time. I have a blast playing them, especially live. It was a blast recording them with these great musicians."

To the listener, Eldar's playing seems effortless, however, the compositional/orchestral components that he puts into his music are not always so, he said.

"Sometimes it's easy, sometimes not," Eldar said of the task. "Playing with great musicians make everything so easy. It's a joy to play where you are not thinking so much about the technicality of music, but rather, to let it flow. Usually, it's a process of this-and-that."

Despite all the hype about this "whiz kid on the keyboards" and his new record, Eldar doesn't feel the least bit overwhelmed, he said.

"I'm just concentrating on doing my own thing, playing music and really having fun," Eldar said. "I'm playing with great musicians and I'm concentrating on creating music that speaks to me and creating music that really carries my message."

Northern Californians can have the opportunity of catching Eldar's "message" live for themselves when the piano genius comes to Yoshi's Jazz House at Jack London Square in Oakland on Monday, June 6 for two shows at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. (See www.yoshis.com) Appearing with Eldar will be members of his working trio: Jeff Chambers on bass and Andrew Fockel on drums.

"We have a fun band," Eldar said. "We'll hit the tunes from the album. We just have fun up there."

(A side note...John Patitucci is also slated to bring his trio (with Adam Rogers on guitar and Nasheet Waits on drums) to Yoshi's later in the month (Tuesday, June 28).
Eldar was born on Jan. 28, 1987, in Kyrgyzstan in the former Soviet Union. Kyrgyzstan, located in Central Asia west of China, is a poor, mountainous country the size of South Dakota with a predominately agricultural economy. With the fall of communism in the Soviet Union in 1991, Kyrgyzstan became a sovereign nation.

At three-and-a-half, Eldar began watching his father, Emil, a devoted jazz aficionado who constantly listened to the BBC and Voice Of America broadcasts, play the family's piano, and was able to repeat note-for-note an Oscar Peterson lick his father played. At age 5, he began studying music with his mother, Tatiana, a classical pianist and musicologist who taught at the Music College in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan.

Although trained in classical keyboard, Eldar quickly gravitated toward jazz, becoming enthusiastically familiar with such jazz piano giants as Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans. When he was given transcriptions of piano solos of these greats, the young pianist polished them off with ease.

"Part of my education prior to Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson goes back to Fats Waller and James P. Johnson as the stride (piano) kings," Eldar said. "That's where I started at first as far as the time line goes."

Eldar was so taken with jazz that he would often times "test his wings" to incorporate jazz-like ideas into his classical music piano practices with his mother. Reportedly, once when Eldar was playing a Mozart sonata, instead of playing a simple C-major chord at the finish, he played a complicated jazz chord. His mother said, "Eldar, that's not Mozart's chord." And Eldar replied, "But it's better."

Even at such an early age, Eldar was able to recognize the freedom and personal expression that jazz music affords.

"With jazz, you are creating a tone poem from your own perspective," Eldar said. "There's the freedom. You never have to play something the same thing twice. You never have to play something exactly in that sort of way. You are painting your own picture with your own input on it. With jazz, you are painting a picture. You're writing a tone poem as you want to write it, as opposed to someone else telling you how to write it."

By age 9, Eldar was so good he was invited to play at a jazz festival in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk in the summer of 1996. It would prove to be a turning point in his and his family's lives. In the audience at that jazz festival was the late New York jazz enthusiast and patron Charles McWhorter who was floored with the young pianist's raw talent. Through McWhorter's intervention, the Djangirov's settled in Prairie Village, just outside Kansas City (chosen for its jazz tradition) in 1998, while Eldar obtained a scholarship at the prestigious Interlochen Center For The Arts in Michigan. He studied at the summer camp from 1998 - 2001, and at age 12, joined Interlochen's High School Jazz Big Band.

Eldar could only utter a few words of English upon his arrival to America, but he soon mastered the new language utilizing the same discipline and practice skills as he would in tackling any musical challenge.

Despite the family's initial difficulties in resettling (Emil, a mechanical engineer, could not find work for two years, but the benevolence of a local church helped the family get through the tough times), Eldar continued to grow and develop at his craft.

McWhorter sent his friend, Marian McPartland, a tape of Eldar's playing, and the grand dame of the piano was so impressed that she invited the young pianist to join her on her National Public Radio program, Piano Jazz, her youngest guest to date. Fall out from Eldar's prodigious talent widened rapidly with his April 1999 appearance on Piano Jazz, that McPartland invited him to play the following year in her Annual Jazz Concert Series at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. After that, Eldar's whirlwind began taking off.

Dr. Billy Taylor then encountered the young Eldar at a Charlie Parker symposium in Kansas City and booked him for an appearance on CBS's Sunday Morning (aired Feb. 27, 2000). While in Kansas City playing for the Jazz Musicians' Foundation, Eldar also caught the ear of Michael Greene, then the head of the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences. Greene immediately signed the young talent to play on the 2000 Grammy Awards telecast.

In February 2001, Eldar took first place in the 2001 Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in Moscow, ID, and captured top honors in the Peter Nero Competition the following year.

At age 15, Eldar performed Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue with the Independence (MO) Symphony Orchestra and has also performed as a guest artist with the Nebraska Jazz Orchestra.

The keyboard titan is also a veteran participant in numerous American jazz festivals, including those in Jefferson City and Kansas City, MO; Topeka, KS; Roswell, NM, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival; Palm Springs, CA; and the JVC Jazz Festival in New York City. He has also twice performed at the Millennium Stage of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Last year, Eldar was selected by Wynton Marsalis to appear at the gala opening of Jazz At Lincoln Center's new Rose Hall. This past January he appeared as a featured artist at the International Association for Jazz Education conference in Long Beach, CA.

Last month, he was a featured guest on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition, and he played in a tribute concert for legendary piano-playing bandleader Jay McShann, 89, in Kansas City, MO.

"Jay is a master," Eldar said affectionately of "Hootie," McShann's nickname. "I got to meet him and talk with him a few times. It was an amazing experience being part of a tribute for him."

Since coming to the United States, Eldar has studied jazz harmony and improvisation with jazz educators Kim Park and John Elliot, big band with Vernon Howard, and arranging with Dave Remington.

Eldar, center, poses for a picture with Dr. Billy Taylor, left, and Marian McPartland, right, earlier this year

in support of the teen's newly released self-titled album on Sony Classical.

In 2001, the then-14-year-old prodigy recorded a self-title CD, his first of two CDs for the D & D label.

Two years later, Eldar released Handprints, featuring Kansas City musicians Gerald Spaits on bass, and Todd Strait on drums. The album is a tribute recording to the young musician's favorite jazz composers and players that combines jazz standards with original compositions. All arrangements were done by Eldar himself. Highlights include Eldar's tango-like Perplexity, and two piano solos: the pensive We Will Meet Again, and the jaunty title track, Handprints.

Even at the time of his first two recordings, the young star developed quite a reputation for "tickling the ivories" on selected pieces with remarkable speed and dexterity. Yet, even he is hard-pressed to offer any description of his piano style.

"It's something that has to be heard," Eldar said. "If you ask anyone to describe Oscar Peterson's style, it would be hard to put into words. That's what the music is therefore to answer."

But once you hear Eldar playing, you know it's him. It's about the group sound and the positive energy that radiates from the band that are the nuances that makes his music distinctly Eldar, he said.

"What I'm trying to do in my playing is focus on the group sound, bring together all the time, having that one sound," Eldar said. "It's about having that stream of line rather than three different things sounding at the same time. It's about being musical and playing lots of ideas and having that energy, positive energy."

While he has the knack for amazing others with his piano playing prowess, Eldar has yet to amaze himself, he said. He tries to keep a healthy personal perspective concerning his artistry by challenging himself by constantly raising the bar to the next level..

"The way I was brought up, my parents taught me to be a tough, self-critic," Eldar said. "They've always monitored me and taught me how to monitor myself. I just want to keeping bringing new ideas out there. I'm not really concerned whether I'm satisfied with myself or not. Music is something you have to learn your whole life. What you do, play and record is a statement of that certain point in time. It's not a matter of the older you get, the more mature you get. Maturity does comes in, of course, but I talking about being in a certain time frame and this is what you say and this is what you have to say, whether it's good or bad. When I look at my past albums, I have definitely grown. What I'm after is evolution, changing myself. That's what I try to look for and that's what I try to achieve. It's funny, you're only satisfied at the moment. That's what is fun about this. You get a satisfaction from evolution, but then you look for something different. That's what keeps the drive going. Thinking about whether I'm a prodigy or not, I don't believe so."

As of June 3, Eldar will be one of America's newest high school graduates. He attended Francis Parker High School, located just blocks away from the University of San Diego, where he held down a 4.0 GPA.

Despite his talent and all the acclaim that is currently following him, Eldar has never thought of himself as a celebrity nor was he ever looked upon as such by his high school classmates. He is just simply known as Eldar, a bright, soft-spoken and articulate young man who, deep down, is just a regular teen who likes doing what regular teens do, he said.

"I love hanging out with friends," he said. "I never think of myself as a celebrity and no one thinks of me as one. I'm always trying to be an 18-year-old doing what kids do like chillin' and hanging out. (laughs)"

And in order to do what regular 18-year-old kids do, Eldar learned early on to strike a balance between his career, education and social life. At times, it has been challenging, he admitted.

"It's also been fun at the same," Eldar said. "It's definitely what I have to do and what I have learned how to do, as I've done it for years. It's a good skill to acquire because you have to manage your time wisely so you don't get lost."

But for Eldar's money, he only wants to "get lost" in the world of music. Other worlds such as athletics or science or theater, for example, hold no interest for him. He's happiest where he is right now. And why wouldn't he be? Life is good for this teen "legend in the making."

"To tell you the truth, I've always loved playing music and I want to play music," Eldar said. "I don't think I'd change anything about it. I wouldn't want to be more athletically inclined. Music is always what I wanted to explore. It's a great world."

A new chapter in Eldar's world will open this fall when he attends the University of Southern California on a full music scholarship.

"What I'm looking forward to is the future of the music," Eldar said. "What I'm trying to do in the future is to build on the ideas I'm trying to incorporate today as I'm playing. What I want to do is to expand on them such as write more compositions and to keep that trio format but it expanding into other areas. That's my vision for tomorrow. That's the vision I try to complete today with the means that I have. Time will tell when I get that opportunity."

And if the opportunity arises, Eldar may see himself in a (tacit) role as an "evangelist" of sorts - an evangelist to help get his peers of the X, Y, Z Generation turned on to the riches that jazz music has to offer.

"If I have the opportunity to do it, I'll do it," Eldar said. "Kids my age aren't much into jazz, which I can't really understand. I listen to 80-percent jazz, but I also listen to everything. I listen to good music. I like listening to things that creates an effect in me. I like anything that creates a statement, anything that feels good and sounds good to me. I try to listen to what seems good to me whether it's jazz, pop, rock, classical, hip-hop or bluegrass. It's all music. I don't try to box myself into one little medium. I try to use jazz as an expression of musical language to create music, rather than have music create jazz. That's the direction I allow myself to be influenced from many, many aspects. I employ myself as to what people listen to today; what 18 year olds listen to today. I inform myself as to what's going on around me. I realize that jazz is a personal statement, such a beautiful statement. That's why people should listen to it."

Since May 18, people in Japan are now listening to Eldar as Sony Classical released the young pianist's album to the Japanese market. In the months ahead, Europe will also be blessed.

While Eldar is not working on any new recording projects at the moment, the planning stages for his next release will take place sometime this summer, he said. In the meantime, he'll go out on the road to promote his current album. He'll have a busy remaining month of June performing at jazz venues on the East Coast. For an updated tour, log on to Eldar's website at www.eldarjazz.com

"Right now, I'm just working with this album," Eldar said. "It's enough work for me right now." (laughing)

As Eldar blazes ahead with what looks to be an exciting career in jazz, the passion that's so evident in his music, burns in his heart as well. It's a burning passion for creating stimulating music that speaks to both heart and mind. He is already there today, while ever evolving. That's the direction he is taking musically, he said.

"What I'm trying to do today is to develop my ideas for the future and to incorporate them today," Eldar said. "There are spots on this new CD that are windows and portals into the future. Some of the originals provide what I'm trying to do for the future. What I'm trying to do today is to play tunes from the album, do new tunes in our live shows, and to just have an exciting time by trying to get the fire going."

*** Eldar and his trio will perform at Yoshi's Jazz House at 510 Embarcadero West (in Jack London Square), Oakland, CA, on Monday, June 6, 2005, for two shows at 8 p.m. and at 10 p.m. Tickets for the 8 p.m. show are $14, and tickets for the 10 p.m. show are $10. For ticket information call (510) 238-9200, or e-mail Yoshi's at yoshis@yoshis.com ***