Composer and pianist Amina Figarova's 12th album, titled Twelve - her debut release on the renowned independent German label In + Out - celebrates jazz is an international music and New York City as a locale where jazz gypsies may feel most at home.  A suite of songs for sextet Figarova wrote swiftly in 2011 after moving with her husband and musical partner, flutist Bart Platteau, to Forest Hills, Queens from their longtime European base, Twelve is suffused with the heightened expectations, sense of adventure and fresh perceptions that voluntary emigrés enjoy, as well as the confidence, creative energies and nuanced fulfillment that artists gain from being in the right place at the right time.
Amina was born and raised in Baku, Azerbaijan, Bart is from Belgium, and together they are citizens of the world. They've toured extensively, developing a tight-knit ensemble that, despite inevitable personnel changes, has attained a distinctive and inimitable voice by concentrating on all-original repertoire for almost 18 years. During that period, Figarova and Platteau have lived in Rotterdam, which they found to be a comfortable if not overly challenging launching pad for their careers. Having collaborated with musicians residing in both the U.S. and Europe and having built up a circuit of welcoming venues by taking it one gig at a time, the Amina Figarova Sextet has triumphed at the main stage of the Newport Jazz Festival, been invited repeatedly to New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, won critical and audience acclaim in Chicago, Detroit, Paris, Amsterdam — and of course New York. In 2010 they decided to make the daring, big move to the States, and having arrived, they couldn't be happier.
 
The value of sustaining such a seasoned and sensitive sextet, for composer-bandleader and listener alike, becomes obvious when music of such intricacy and refinement as Amina Figarova's is heard.  We don't hear it as intricate or refined, we hear it as heartening, stimulating, resolute, inspiring and warm. We know it's hard to accomplish what this band does – as it's hard to live in New York, and hard to make jazz or any other form of creative music, dance and art anywhere. Firmly grounded, the Amina Figarova Sextet will keep moving, growing, evolving, engaging with listeners who are moved, perhaps, to eagerly anticipate Thirteen.