Amina Figarova Sextet to Play Jazz Fest Saturday

The internationally renowned composer and jazz pianist Amina Figarova will perform at this Saturday's edition of the Marblehead Jazz Festival series, accompanied by a sextet that includes her flutist husband, Bart Platteau.

Although this will be the first concert in Marblehead for the Amina Figarova Sextet, Figarova and Platteau have a special connection here. Platteau plays a flute made by Carmen Pugliese, proprietor of Carmen's Jewelry on Pleasant Street.

Pugliese was formerly a craftsman for the Wm. S. Haynes Company in Boston, a world-class maker of flutes and other woodwind instruments since 1888.

"I made a flute for myself years ago and wasn't playing it, so I asked Bart if he wanted to play it around the world, instead of sitting on my shelf," Pugliese said.

Pugliese met Platteau and Figarova in New Orleans years ago. "We struck up a friendship, and we've had them in our home," he said.

The Amina Figarova Sextet plays the Newport Jazz Festival this weekend and seized the opportunity to play the Marblehead festival at the invitation of local impresario Gene Arnould.

Of all the performances at this summer's 26th run of the Marblehead Jazz Festival, Arnould said he is most excited about this one.

"It's exciting, hard-driving jazz," Arnould said. "It's Hard Bop, or Post-Bop -- very creative and exciting."

Arnould, who launched the jazz festival in 1985, said it's been a "great summer" this year, with returning guest performers, such as Rebecca Parris (who has played in every one of the festivals since the beginning), and new artists.

"These are world-class performers who've played Newport and major clubs in Boston, San Francisco," and elsewhere, Arnould said.

Figarova was trained as a classical pianist at the Baku Conservatory in her native Azerbaijan, before studying jazz at the Rotterdam Conservatory in the Netherlands and Berklee College of Music in Boston.

She has played in festivals and clubs all over the world, including in New York at Dizzy's in Lincoln Center, in Europe and Japan. Her latest album is called "Sketches."

This Saturday's concert, at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Mugford Street, begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are still available.