Gasparyan, Djivan — I Will Not Be Sad In This World

Date: 1989
Release: Warner #25885
Cover Art: view / download
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“Without doubt one of the most beautiful and soulful recordings I have ever heard.”

I Will Not Be Sad In This World is an album whose gently defiant title should become our mantra in these times of terror. In the days immediately after September 11, 2001, my stereo fell silent as the TV mercilessly blared out its cacophony of bad news, brutalizing us with images of a new world. We held the Medusa’s head up to the mirror, and refused to accept that the image reflected might simply be a human one. In an exhausting marathon, I remained glued to the tube, wondering what in the hell was going on, wondering what happened to love, wondering what I’d tell my children someday–if I lived that long. In the panic, I had abandoned music–my love, my religion. For four days I lived without it, not realizing what I was doing to myself, until finally I heard that first healing note. I turned to this record, and in a brilliant moment, found serenity.

There is a deeply restorative power present in the music of Djivan Gasparyan. It reaches your ears like a gift, then moves on inside you, even when the record stops. I Will Not Be Sad In This World contains some of the most emotionally expressive music I’ve ever heard. Achingly beautiful sounds emerge from Gasparyan’s duduk, a 3000 year-old flute-like instrument from his native Armenia. His mystical playing can only be described as transcendent, overflowing with a spiritual intensity of Biblical proportions. Like saxophonist John Coltrane’s divinely inspired playing on A Love Supreme, Gasparyan somehow manages to pull from his instrument a sound that feels like the human soul laid bare.

I was first introduced to the music of Djivan Gasparyan through his collaboration with Peter Gabriel on Passion, the soundtrack to Martin Scorsese’s epic film, The Last Temptation Of Christ. With its brilliant fusion of ancient and modern sounds, Passion ignited my deep love for Middle-Eastern music, profoundly influencing the music that I myself began to play. At the time, I didn’t realize that Peter Gabriel served more as an interpreter and synthesizer than a composer of the music on Passion. That’s why I was so shocked when I first put on I Will Not Be Sad In This World, because what I was hearing was clearly Passion’s source. The opening song, “A Cool Wind Is Blowing,” sounded exactly the same as the opening song from Passion, “The Feeling Begins,” minus Peter Gabriel’s heavy drum overdubs. And without the drums, the plaintive tone of Gasparyan duduk poured though the speakers in its purist form, hitting me in my soul. This was something.

Now out-of-print, I Will Not Be Sad In This World was originally released on the Russian Melodya label in 1983 and was subsequently released in 1989 on Brian Eno’s label, Opal Records. It was dedicated to the victims of the devastating earthquake that struck Armenia on December 7, 1988. Although he gained worldwide recognition for the record, he hardly made a dime. Gasparyan donated all of the profits to help his fellow countrymen. Today, as we live through this new man-made disaster, we must all search out the music that helps us recover. Remember the simple message offered by Djivan Gasparyan: I WILL NOT BE SAD IN THIS WORLD.