Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi
Being myself an Iranian I’ve been always looking for Iranian or American-Iranian musicians living and playing here in the States. Iranian musicians who either don’t play the LA type of “Iranian Pop music” nor Persian classical music, but a kind of music which is contemporary and original. One of them I found out is the Iranian-American composer, saxophonist, theorist and educator Hafez Modirzadeh who lives and teaches in LA. Unfortunately since coming to New York I haven’t have the chance to meet him. In fact I missed two of his New York concerts in the last two years due to my own music commitments.
The first time I heard of Modirzadeh was about ten years ago, when I still lived in Tokyo. A Japanese jazz journalist surprised me with a cassette of Modirzadeh’s music which sounded “oriental jazzy,” very cool and original. I was impressed by what I heard. At that time I didn’t understand what he was playing. Today I know: he played “chromodal” which is a a cross-cultural musical concept and music style, developed from his own American jazz and Iranian dastgah heritages.
But I liked his music and the tone of his tenor sax. Last spring with the release of my CD SoSaLa Nu World Trash I used this occasion to mail Modirzadeh and introduce myself. He responded to my mail shortly writing:
