Cycle Rain Sultanov & Isfar Sarabski

• 1Prelude 05:43
• 2Embrio 08:27
• 3Planet 07:02
• 4Tandem 05:48
• 5Symbiosis 06:07
• 6Orison 05:49
• 7Oblivion 04:18
• 8Reincarnation 04:37
• 9Silence 06:55
• Total Runtime54:46

Info for Cycle

Cosmic Games: The higher we get, the less earthly boundaries matter. It is to heaven, therefore, that Cycle aspires. Here, three rarely combined instruments – organ, saxophone and piano – are suddenly speaking as one. Already in the late-70s, Jan Garbarek and Kjell Johnsen explored similar territory on the ECM album Aftenland. Compared to their stark, radical experimentalism, however, Cycle feels more like a meditative, brightly illuminated energy space – fittingly, since Rain Sultanov and Isfar Sarabski's home of Azerbaijan is frequently referred to as the 'land of fire'.

Clearly, then, this album is about more than just music. Already its title references Rudolf Steiner's vision of life being composed of seven cycles: From the moment of our inception until its dissolution in death and beyond, to the reincarnation of soul and body. Within this cosmic game, each instrument takes on a clearly defined role: The organ represents majesty and holiness. The saxophone describes our deepest emotions. The piano, with its evolutionary qualities, binds the two together.

And yet, Cycle is never purely conceptual. Compared to Sultanov's epic, three-hour-long history project Tale of my Land, it almost feels modest: Just nine delicate and ethereal pieces about hope, faith and deliverance, moving in slow motion. Despite its almost funereal pace, however, this is not the domain of darkness, but the abode of light. If you listen very carefully, you can hear rays of sunlight falling through the windows of the Church of the Saviour in Baku, where the album was recorded.

Needless to say, even this deeply felt music can offer no more than a glimpse at absolute truths. For Sultanov and Sarabski, therefore, the search must go on – in endless cycles of questions and answers, doubt and confidence, of silence and sound.

Rain Sultanov, soprano saxophone
Isfar Sarabski, organ, piano
Medina Sultanov, voice (on track 6)

Rain Sultanov
is leading jazz saxophonist who has made a huge contribution to the development of jazz culture in Azerbaijan. Not many were able to walk such a turbulent and interesting creative path, rich and full of musical events, as Rain Sultanov. He is a person whose work is always of interest to the world's experts of high music. Rain's music carries a lot of sense and leads one to a deep thought.

Rain Sultanov was born on April 29, 1965 in Baku, Azerbaijan. After graduating from a music school as a distance student, specializing in clarinet and surprising his teachers with hard work and natural talent, Rain demonstrated his extraordinary ability for the first time. In 1985, Rain Sultanov was awarded at the Republican clarinetists contest. ​

In 1988, having received an invitation from the master of Azerbaijani vocal arts Rashid Behbudov, he began working at the Azerbaijan Song Theatre. After Behbudov's in 1990 Rain becomes jazz soloist of the ‘Qaya' State Jazz Orchestra. After this period of life can be called Rain Sultanov's emerging professional jazz career. ​

In 1997 he founded the band Syndicate and released his first album ‘Last Moment’. ​

In 2003, Rain Sultanov published a work of many years, his book ‘Anthology of Jazz in Azerbaijan’. The book featured archival materials collected from all over the world, as well as facts and photographs of those who were somehow associated with jazz in Azerbaijan. The book also contains two Cd’s with the music of past years and the compositions of contemporary musicians. It became the first comprehensive reference material on jazz in Azerbaijan, showing the whole process of historical development of jazz in Baku. ​

Along with scientific research and analysis of the development of jazz, Sultanov did not limit himself in musical activity. A year later, Rain Sultanov became the art director and organizer of the festival, which he named the Baku Jazz Festival. Starting that year, the international festival in Baku has been held annually and is the largest jazz event in the country.

He also possesses his own unique style of performance and an everlasting series of new ideas, albums and projects. Beginning in the Soviet time and to this day, Rain Sultanov has been a participant of a large number of concerts and jazz festivals held worldwide.

Rain Sultanov – authoritative jazz musician and leading exponent of different forms of music, with his own style and a plethora of ideas and projects, drawn inexorably to the mysterious world of the future.

This album contains no booklet.