Zabit Nabizade was born in 1965 in Shikhzahirli, Shamakhi region, Azerbaijan (former USSR).. He is a teacher at the National Conservatory of Azerbaijan and represents the mugam’s tradition. Aliasker Mammadov and Khayyam Mammadov accompany him respectively with the tar and the kamanché.
Mugam is both a lettered belief and a popular musical tradition, widely open to improvisation. It combines one singer with traditional instrument players (lute tar, kamache and tambourine daf).
Mugam comes from the meeting of Persian, Oghuz Turkish and Caucasian populations, which have their origin in the Azerbaijani culture. Thus, mugam is a bright mix of Iranian maqam, Persian radif and Turkish makam. Mugam also embraces melodies and performance techniques of ashiq bards, who used to travel throughout the country in order to create a really original and rooted form of expression. In 2003, it was recognized as “Masterpiece of the Oral and Immaterial Heritage” by UNESCO.
Nabizade was given the Presidential Award on May 10, 2019.
Author: TJ Nelson
TJ Nelson is a regular CD reviewer and editor at World Music Central. She is also a fiction writer. Check out her latest book, Chasing Athena’s Shadow. Set in Pineboro, North Carolina, Chasing Athena’s Shadow follows the adventures of Grace, an adult literacy teacher, as she seeks to solve a long forgotten family mystery. Her charmingly dysfunctional family is of little help in her quest. Along with her best friends, an attractive Mexican teacher and an amiable gay chef, Grace must find the one fading memory that holds the key to why Grace’s great-grandmother, Athena, shot her husband on the courthouse steps in 1931. Traversing the line between the Old South and New South, Grace will have to dig into the past to uncover Athena’s true crime.