Photos by Jill Steinberg
Iranian-American saxophonist Hafez Modirzadeh has spent decades straddling two traditions, finding the commonalities, and using them to create something entirely new. Born in Durham, North Carolina to an Iranian father and an Irish/Russian mother, he came to jazz as a teenager, enraptured by Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, and Lester Young. âIt wasnât until I had to consciously consider who I was in this society and as a musician,â he says, that he was drawn to Persian music, despite having heard his father sing and play the
tombak (a type of drum) at home. Living in the Bay Area, he began studying with a traditional Persian musician, Mahmoud Zoufonoun, and soon perceived similarities between the two approaches to making music.