Forgiveness Rain Sultanov

• 1Forgive Me06:00
• 2Love Will Change You04:19
• 3Sinister Act02:09
• 4The Bodies03:35
• 5Requiem04:44
• 6Unusual Space03:43
• 7Liberation from the Evil02:44
• 8Soul00:50
• 9Ballad of the Universe02:39
• Total Runtime30:43

Info for Forgiveness

Anger is a destructive force. Especially now, in the news, we can witness its impact every single day. And yet it is an integral part of the human condition. On his new album for Ozella, Rain Sultanov is confronting anger by writing some of the most heavenly music of his career.

Soprano saxophone, organ, cello – this unusual instrumentation is at the heart of these nine floating, deeply moving compositions. As such, Forgiveness is an extension of the palette of the 2018 release Cycle, which focused on the core duo of organ and saxophone.

The line-up, however, as Sultanov stresses, is not what matters. What counts is using music as an instrument to transform our anger – and to offer it, others and ourselves forgiveness.

Rain Sultanov, soprano saxophone
Vladimir Nesterenko, organ
Aleksey Miltikh, cello

Recorded September 2021, The Church of the Savior, Azerbaijan
Recorded By Nazim Kerimov, Mixed by Reinhard Buchta
Mastered by Hans-Jörg Maucksch at Pauler Acoustics

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.

Booklet for Forgiveness