It's remarkable how young people around the world get obsessed with jazz. Take pianist Tigran Hamasyan (1987) for instance. As a two-year-old in Armenia he was already interested in music. A year later he was singing to the tunes of Led Zeppelin, The Beatles and Louis Armstrong, getting completely hooked on jazz at the age of seven. Tigran used to improvise obsessively at home and during his musical studies he was fanatically engrossed by the works of the greats of jazz. Because he visited many European festivals, he came into contact with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Joe Zawinul and John Patitucci. In 2003, Hamasyan won both the First Prize and the Audience Prize at the Jazz Solo Piano Competition in Montreux. That was the beginning of a fast-moving career. Tigran Hamasyan's style of playing is comparable to that of Corea and Hancock with a lot of emphasis on the percussive aspects. His latest, third album is called Red Hail (2009).
