The Call Within - Tigran Hamasyan (2020)

There are so many great, inventive pianists in the jazz and jazz-adjacent world these days, it’s hard to keep up.

Hamasyan brings the musical flavors of his native Armenia to some great modern jazz. There’s such a propulsive, percursive forward motion to this. I first heard of him from a write-up on a metal blog, and while I wouldn’t call this metal you can definitely hear some similarities.

Exciting, bracing, and challenging, Hamasyan pulls off quite a feat here.