Tim Hughes conquers May Day sleep deprivation and basks in the musical embrace of one of the world's best jazz pianists

  • Tigran
  • North Wall Arts Centre, Oxford

Tigran Hamasyan is not much of a talker. The virtuoso pianist lets his instrument speak for him— and what a story it tells.

Hunched over the keyboard, the wild-eyed Armenian seems oblivious to the audience sat in rapt attention behind him. He is clearly elsewhere — and as he teases each note, riff and run from his piano he seems entirely at one with it.

It’s hard to categorize Tigran’s music. Straddling the worlds of classical, ethnic Armenian, modern jazz, dance and bass-rich electronica, it stands to divide and alienate devotees of each genre as much as unify. But, to those of an open mind, his sweeping range and mischievous disregard for boundaries make this intense 27-year-old an irresistible artist — and one of the world’s greatest jazz pianists.

His performance to a small-ish but respectful audience at the North Wall Arts Centre on Thursday was, by turns, uplifting, ethereal and challenging. That haunting, spacy quality was magnified among the true Oxfordians in the crowd, by the fact we were sitting here on May Day evening — after a spectacularly early morning, surplus of ale and Morris dancing, and a criminal lack of slumber. Post-modern jazz and sleep deprivation, I discovered, make good bedfellows, however, and I was drawn into Tigran’s spiral of lilting eastern scales, looped electronics and improvisation — backed by just an electric guitar and drums — captivated as the music unfurled like a blossoming rose, before violently scattering its petals in a spiky, discordant judder.

Tigran calls his music “Armenian anti-experimental punk jazz”, but that raises as many questions as it answers and comes no closer to describing its range. With his new album Shadow Theater (he favours the US spelling, having honed his craft in the States), his iconoclastic anti-classical side comes to the fore, in the shape of something approximating pop or rock as much as jazz. His recent compositions, meanwhile, cross completely into dance territory, with cool, looped beats that would go down with drum and bass fans.

The rapturous applause and the enthusiasm with which the trio were enticed back on stage for an encore was evidence of the power of this enigmatic composer and of our delight in a magical mystery musical journey. I can’t think of a better way to bring in the May.