Amir ElSaffar

Amir ElSaffar ( born October 8, 1977 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American jazz musician (trumpet, santur, vocals) and composer.

Life and work

ElSaffar has an Iraqi father and an American mother. He initially trained as a classical music education at DePaul University in Chicago; then he studied both jazz and the traditional maqam singing style. After graduating, he moved to New York City and worked among others with Cecil Taylor, also with his own bands. After he won in 2001 two trumpets competitions, he traveled to Baghdad in 2002, where he learned traditional Iraqi musicians and then in London at Hamid al- Saadi, the santur.

After his return to the United States, he began to integrate Iraqi music into his jazz compositions. In 2007, he put on Pi Recordings before his debut album, Two Rivers, which was also Rudresh Mahanthappa participated. Being with Hafez Modirzadeh conceived and 2009 with Alex Cline and Mark Dresser rehearsed album radif Suite builds on " the exotic explorations of Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry ."

Awards

ElSaffar won the 2001 Carmine Caruso Jazz Trumpet Competition and in the same year, the International Trumpet Guild Jazz Improvisation Competition.

Disco Graphical Notes

• Two Rivers (Pi Recordings, 2007), Carlo DeRosa, Nasheet Waits, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Zafer Tawil
• Amir ElSaffar & Hafez Modirzadeh - radif Suite (Pi Recordings, 2009) with Mark Dresser, Alex Cline