Kazazian is not a giant of Ellington's weight, but there is a breath of something different, incomparable and incomplete about him which suggests comparisons. He goes way out on the music-lines with his own things, regardless of consequences. It is dangerous. The trying's the thing.
Music dies without it.
Tonight with the bigger ensemble he is fully extended into new areas. It begins out of the detritus of broken sands. The music goes along in a bare line to start with, gradually building forms. The sounds are not exactly tunes, relating to neither Arabic nor Western key changes. Yet the result is not abstract, owing nothing to Western descriptive sounds.