Harlem Awakenings
Amina Figarova was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, and as a child studied to be a classical concert pianist. In the late 1980s, she entered Rotterdam Conservatory to pursue jazz, coming to the United State in 1989 to complete her formal education at Boston’s Berklee College of Music (where she met Plateau, a fellow student from Belgium). In 1998 they were invited to the Thelonious Monk Institute’s summer jazz colony in Aspen, and after more than a decade of bookings in major U.S. jazz clubs, concert halls and festivals, the couple gained legal immigrant status in 2014. They currently live in Manhattan and tour constantly. The compositions “Pictures” and “The Traveler” were commissioned by Jazz at Lincoln Center for its 2014-15 New Jazz Standards series. Blue Whisper is Figarova’s second album, after Twelve, on In + Out Records, an independent label based in Freiberg, Germany.
