Showing posts with label Anor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anor. Show all posts

Monday, 13 March 2017

Anor's long sought-after Taste of Pomegranate from 1987






Surprisingly there is a review online from 2001 for this rarity:

Line-up: 

Grigory "Grig" Pushen - bass 

Simon Mordukhayev - saxophones 

Natalie Nurmukhamedova - vocalizes 

Yury Benjaminov - guitars, sitar & Uzbek national string instruments 

Andrey Pertsev - drums 

B.Tashkhodjayev - Uzbek national bass instruments

A.Yakubov - keyboards

ANOR was formed by the talented composers Grig Pushen and Simon Mordukhayev in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, in the beginning of the 1980s. In the first half of the 1980s the band played only in Tashkent's various clubs. In 1985 Anor was invited to perform at the annual (and very popular in these years) festival of Jazz and Jazz-related music, called "Fergana Jazz". It's called so because it was held in the town of Fergana, which is one of the regional civic centres of Uzbekistan. Anor's performance at the "Fergana Jazz 1985" festival was very successful and the band become a winner of it, while a few of the band members were awarded as the best guitarist, bassist, etc. That happened mainly thanks to the enthusiasm and efforts of the Anor bandleader Grig Pushen who was one of the leading composers of Uzbekistan in the 1980s. Anor disbanded in the beginning of the 1990s, and then Grig has founded his own recording studio, which at the time was the most modern and respectable studio in the republic. Back to Anor, after the band's major success on "Fergana Jazz 1985" the famous Uzbekistani female singer Natalie Nurmukhamedova, whose popularity wasn't limited by the borders of the USSR (let alone the borders of her own republic), joined them. Another musician, who was famous all over the USSR, saxophonist Simon Mordukhayev become the 'staff' Anor member a few years ago. A very talented drummer Andrey Pertsev, one of the Anor's former members, also became a well known musician. It happened in the beginning of the 1990s, when he joined the legendary heavy metal band from Moscow called Black Coffee. During the first half of the 1990s Andrey was also a drummer for a couple of Russia's famous Thrash and Heavy-Metal bands. Thanks to his incredible musicianship, the further musical career of Andrey has been continued in Canada, where he and his family live since 1997. Yuri Bendjaminov is also one of the most well known Uzbekistani musicians. The only Anor LP was pressed by both the biggest (Moscow and Tashkent) factories-divisions of the "Melody" concern. "A Taste of Pomegranate" represents an extremely original and complex, intricate Jazz-Fusion (Progressive Jazz-Rock, to be precise), filled with unique, colourful Uzbek and other Eastern ornaments'and all of the essential progressive ingredients as well. In their messages to me, a lot of my friends in CIS and abroad, who are into a real Prog Fusion and have Anor's "A Taste of Pomegranate" LP, expressed their delight with the music of the band and the musicianship of all of the band members. Frankly, the majority of them said Anor is on a par with most of the famous Titans of the genre.



Unfortunately I cannot share their enthusiasm and for me it was a huge disappointment especially in comparison to the next instalment which will be Sunkar.

From rateyourmusic you can see the demand for this.  The review is ineptly overestimating:

80s smooth jazz crossed with Silk Road romanticism.  At the point where the "ethnic" and the bland intersect, the "avant garde" can briefly be seen.  Seasoned pros of the Soviet scene will find much to enjoy, but newcomers might deem Sato, who follow the same formula and are from the same Republic, more palatable.

As usual discogs has the Russian completely hidden from us (a search for Anor doesn't work), it can be found here in the database.  If you look at the sale price on the right hand side you will easily understand why it was such a disappointment to purchase, but here's track b1, which is 13 minutes long, and in my opinion the highest level of composition achieved:





And I'll throw in track b2 right after, which I found to be totally average (thereby giving the lie to the Rym reviewer):