Amina Figarova

An Azerbaijan-born pianist and composer, Amina Figarova has built a reputation for her harmonically sophisticated post-bop in both small-group and large-ensemble settings. Since surfacing in the mid-1990s she has divided her professional life between European engagements and her New York City base. Working closely with her husband, flutist Bart Platteau, she has drawn acclaim for recordings such as the 2005 release Come Escape with Me, the 2015 album Blue Whisper, and the 2019 project Road to the Sun.

Born in Baku in 1964, when the city served as capital of Soviet Azerbaijan, Figarova began piano instruction at age two and was already writing music by six. Her classical foundation drew early inspiration from Johann Sebastian Bach, Sergey Rachmaninov, Claude Debussy, and the scores of Alexander Scriabin, while her jazz-loving parents exposed her to Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson, and Ella Fitzgerald. After initial training at the Baku Conservatory she continued at the Rotterdam Conservatory in the Netherlands and later at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she refined her jazz skills. At Berklee she met her future husband and frequent collaborator, flutist Bart Platteau. A strong improviser, she also matured into a distinctive modern jazz composer shaped by the forward-looking post-bop of Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Miles Davis, and Wayne Shorter. Her 1994 debut album Attraction presented original material and featured contributions from flutist Platteau, bassist Ishaq van Niel, and drummer Sebastiaan de Krom.

In 1998 Figarova participated in the Thelonious Monk Jazz Colony summer program in Aspen, Colorado, and that same year issued her second album, Another Me. She also served as artist-in-residence in the San Francisco Bay Area alongside trumpeter Dmitri Matheny. She and Platteau settled in Rotterdam for much of the 2000s, releasing small-group recordings including 2000’s Firewind, 2002’s Night Train, and 2005’s Come Escape with Me. That year she also brought out September Suite, a work honoring those lost in the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center. Above the Clouds appeared in 2008. Beyond her own projects she has performed with leading artists such as James Moody, Larry Coryell, Winard Harper, Toots Thielemans, and Claudio Roditi. As an arranger she has partnered with vocalists Jackie Ryan and Lenora Zenzalai Helm.

After issuing Sketches in 2010, Figarova and Platteau established permanent residence in New York City. Two years later they released Twelve. Their sextet, featuring saxophonist Wayne Escoffery and trumpeter Alex Pope Norris, made its recorded debut on 2015’s Blue Whisper. In 2019 Figarova received a New Jazz Works Grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and issued the sextet album Road to the Sun. Persistence followed in 2020, pairing the pianist and her husband with guitarist Rez Abbasi, bassist Yasushi Nakamura, and drummer Rudy Royston.