Polish-born vocalist Aga Zaryan is a major star of European jazz. She was the first Polish musician to sign with the Blue Note label and made three albums with them. She has performed not only in Europe but also in the USA, Japan, Turkey, and China. She combines ambitious artistic goals with an ability to reach a wider audiences in an original and uncompromising way. She has been voted Female Vocalist of the Year in Poland around a dozen of times in Jazz Forum’s annual polls, earning acclaim from both critics and listeners.
Recording in Polish and English (she spent three years of her childhood near Manchester), her records are both a continuation of the jazz tradition of vocalists such as Carmen McRae, Shirley Horn, Abbey Lincoln, and Nina Simone, and an expression of her own, original, and contemporary musical style. She is currently preparing to record her 12th album in Los Angeles, titled “Second Time Around,” and next year will mark the 25th anniversary of her debut album.
Her voice is praised for its warm, slightly matt tone, which can be both smooth and very expressive. Numerous publications highlight her distinctive style, elegance and intimate approach to singing, lightness of phrasing and a mastery of both classic jazz and contemporary repertoire.
She brought a pair of top Polish jazz musicians to Edinburgh, pianist Piotr Wyleżoł and trumpeter Robert Majewski for an intimate set which created a great buzz in the ‘Famous Spiegeltent’ venue, a charming, colourful, slightly fairytale setting.
Photo credit Ben Glasgow
Zaryan immediately captured the audience’s full attention from the very first notes of “Wild is the Wind”. “Central Park at Dusk” showed what a great storyteller Zaryan is – she selects poetry from all over the world with great care, and commissions composers to set it.
One of the high points of the evening was The Beatles’ beautiful ballad “And I Love Her” (here as “And I Love Him”); her version is intimate, personal, almost ascetic. Aga recalls that “The Beatles’ music has inspired jazz musicians for decades”…
There’s no shortage of Polish accents – “Na moście w Avignon”, popularised by the iconic Ewa Demarczyk, is sung along with every Polish person in the audience, while „Miłość” (“Love”), a moving classic from Aga Zaryan’s highly acclaimed album “Umiera piękno” (“Beauty is Dying”), is listened to with such rapt attention from the audience that one could hear the proverbial pin drop.
Aga Zaryan presented all the aspects that make her unique and successful: a wonderful voice with a timbre rich in shades and depth, pure jazz phrasing and excellent vocalism that maintains respect for the jazz idiom (despite often moving into very contemporary musical areas), and a gift for natural storytelling. The chemistry between her and the musicians was incredible.
Overall, it was a beautiful concert by an outstanding vocalist, combining different styles and musical worlds in an original way into a coherent, captivating musical spectacle that left audience fully satisfied with this musical journey, additionally filling us with the enthusiastic conviction that this unique artist still has many cards to reveal to us!
SET LIST
1. “Wild is the Wind” (Dimitri Tiomkin – Ned Washington)
2. “Central Park at Dusk” (music Szymon Mika to poem by Sara Teasdale)
3. “Long as You’re Living” (Tommy Turrentine, Julian Priester & Oscar Brown)
4. “And I Love Her” (Lennon-McCartney)
5. “Na moście w Avignon” – (music Andrzej Zarycki to poem by Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński)
6. “I Got Thunder (And it Rings)” (Abbey Lincoln)
7. “Miłość” (music Michał Tokaj to poem by Krystyna Krahelska)
8. “Come Rain or Shine” (Harold Arlen – Johnny Mercer)
9. “Throw it Away” (Abbey Lincoln)
10. “I Hear Music” (Frank Loesser – Burton Lane)
