Eldar

Hard bop and post-bop pianist Eldar Djangirov secured a deal with Sony Classical prior to reaching voting eligibility, an achievement few jazz performers, keyboardists included, ever attain. While many musicians first explore jazz in their teenage years, the majority wait until their twenties before issuing a debut as bandleader, and some remain unrecorded even as supporting players until later. Djangirov, however, began leading sessions in his mid-teens and completed three albums before turning eighteen. An émigré from the former Soviet Union, he incorporates a broad spectrum of bebop, hard bop, post-bop, and swing elements into his performances. Although the pianist works primarily on acoustic piano and occasionally on electric keyboards while remaining firmly straight-ahead, his playing reflects the crisp, transparent styles of Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck, Keith Jarrett, and Ahmad Jamal, often yielding lyrical, at times impressionistic, results. He has also drawn upon the rhythmic vitality of Oscar Peterson and Red Garland, while additional sources range from McCoy Tyner and Bud Powell to pre-bop pianist Art Tatum. His improvisations may reference Thelonious Monk’s angular phrasing or Garland’s signature block-chord technique. Despite the Sony Classical affiliation, Djangirov does not pursue a classical path; straight-ahead jazz remains his central focus, although he occasionally integrates vocabulary from the European classical tradition.

Born January 28, 1987, in Kyrgyzstan within the former Soviet Union, Djangirov began piano lessons at age five under his mother, Tatiana Djangirov, a music instructor based in Bishkek. In 1996 the nine-year-old appeared at a jazz festival in Novosibirsk, Russia, where American supporter Charles McWhorter first encountered him. Recognizing his promise, McWhorter facilitated attendance at a summer program at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan. Djangirov remained in the United States thereafter, residing first in Kansas City and subsequently in San Diego, California. His initial release, Eldar on the D&D label, appeared in 2001 when he was fourteen, followed in 2003 by the sophomore effort Handprints. After signing with Sony Classical in 2004 he recorded a third album, also titled Eldar, featuring bassist John Patitucci and tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker, issued in March 2005. Two years later he issued Re-Imagination, which explored solo acoustic piano alongside electronica textures, and Virtue followed in 2009.