From 2015. Whether it will become a new Officium and ignite the imagination of the broader jazz and particularly classical music public’s curiosity on a mass scale is impossible to predict. But the striking unearthly qualities and interventions of ancient cultures and history made into the way we think about music and live today are somehow at work in the same way as the Hilliards and Jan Garbarek achieved in combination back in the 1990s despite the huge musical and cultural differences.

Tigran Hamasyan may be impossible to pin down stylistically, former musical collaborator Trilok Gurtu has even commented tellingly that he “plays piano like a raga.” As one of the most acclaimed beyond-genre jazz pianists of the past decade he is performing with the Yerevan State Chamber Choir digging deep back into his Armenian roots recording this beautiful album in Yerevan, the Armenian capital.

Luys i Luso is an extraordinarily spiritual album that has a humbling majesty and stillness to it. The title meaning, in English, ‘light from light’, explores Armenian sacred music, the pianist loosely improvising around Armenian modes at one with the chamber choir interpreting newly arranged Armenian hymns, sharakans (chants) and cantos some dating back to the 5th century by among others Grigor Narekatsi, Nerses Shnorhali, Mesrop Mashtots, Mkhitar Ayrivanetsi, Grigor Pahlavuni and Komitas mainly written in grabar, the oldest form of the Armenian language.

There’s little here to compare with anything undertaken by a contemporary jazz musician apart from say Keith Jarrett’s explorations of the mystic Armenian modes and atmospheres of Gurdjieff in the 1980s with the cult Sacred Hymns of GI Gurdjieff, or cellist Anja Lechner’s later duo explorations of Komitas and others.

A different mindset is needed as a listener away from fixed styles and comfort zones. On the metrically complex ‘Ov Zarmanali’ Tigran breathes wind into some improvisatory runs to break loose a little more than the otherwise tight structures allow, the piano parts not written out within the arrangement giving him a lot of room for interpretation. Later there’s a surge of power and inspiration the choir responding to Tigran’s sudden freedom on Mashtots piece ‘Voghormea indz Astvats’ a fasting canticle and plea for divine mercy.

The vibrato-less singing style guided by four-part harmony remains simple and pure throughout. And there is no conscious or forced meeting of ancient and modern or diverging traditions that might dilute the impact of the collaboration, the piano part and sacred voices somehow achieving a oneness, the monastic atmosphere of the whole album magically conveyed. The heady themes of repentance, devotion and struggle unite in an unerring mood that holds your attention from start to finish remarkably powerful even in the secular world we live in. SG