Francesco Martinelli
December 2002

Jazzin' Around Europe
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By Francesco Martinelli

Ankara's club scene recently dried up, but thankfully the Ankara Jazz Society, untypically led by two charming young ladies, keeps going strong. They have a rich website (www.acd.org.tr), a magazine (Cazete), but above all they have been presenting a festival for 6 years in a row.

The 2002 edition took place from November 18 to 24, as always hosted in the comfortable spaces of Middle East Technical University, a campus out of town where the best Turkish students tackle hard sciences. It opened with an Army big band led by the best loved man on the Turkish jazz scene, Tuna Ötenel, and graced by the swinging, expressive vocals of Sibel Köse. The international guests included the groovy Screaming Mimis, an American/Spanish band, as well as musicians from Holland, Austria, Hungary and Poland. Local bands like F-inity, Funkara and Lifeline presented their own lively brand of jazz rock; pianist Kaan Biyikoglu's trio was not at ease with the standard jazz repertoire, but gave the best on the leader's own compositions, while guitarist Sarp Maden, percussionist Lari Dilmen and Cenk GÃŒray on modified saz played an experimental set based on free association of musical ideas, provocative and at times successful. Maden has a personal sound world, and sometimes seemed too immersed into it, and the guitar/saz integration is quite hard; Dilmen happily grooved on his original drums set up, where darbuka and ramazan drums are integrated into the jazz traps.

The festival closed happily with three of the best Turkish jazz groups. Neset Ruacan is a true master of jazz guitar, amd the best kept secret of Turkish jazz - all in all not as widely known as it should be. Ruacan led an all star trio with Kamil Erdem on bass and Cengiz Baysal on drums, through a repertoire of standard tunes, including the ubiquitous Wave and some '50 rarely played hits like Teach Me Tonight. The two men in the rhythm section, leaders on their own of two widely different groups, seemed to have different ideas about where to place the beat, but finally clicked during the second set, leaving Ruacan free to alternate driving chord progressions and single-line melodic improvisations. The trio has a definite future, but such strong personalities need time and work to integrate. Ali Perret presented his Mingus Trippin, a tribute band to the great bassist and composer featuring the powerful tenor sax of Ricky Ford, Mingus alumnus now teaching at Istanbul's Bilgi University Jazz Program: the tunes were completely reconstructed, and one highlight of the evening was the improvised duo between Ford and drummer Can Kozlu, whose simple style is tasteful, very effective, and supporting to the band. Imer Demirer soloed imaginatively, while the fact that Raci Pismisoglu plays electric bass shouldn't be considered outrageous - in fact he's very true to the original Mingus spirit!

Pianist Ayse Tutuncu led her exciting Piano-Percussion group through a repertoire that included Debussy, tangos and original compositions. Since the last time I saw them, there were three major changes, but the basic nature of the group, strongly led from the piano bench, wasn't uprooted.Cengiz Baysal is now sitting at the drums: some special percussive sound is lost, but his unfailing beat gives the frame of reference to the whole percussion section, where Saruhan Erim, Timuçin GÌrer and Serdar Gönenç confirmed their extraordinary, almost symbiotic compatibility, and their special brand of humour. Yahya Dai, well known saxophonist, was subbing for Oguz BÌyÌkberber, who is pursuing his musical interests in Amsterdam. The two men instruments and personalities could not be more different, and yet Yahya after a bumpy start found a way to integrate his voice into the group. Finally, electric guitar player Akin Eldes, who worked with Ayse in other different contexts, was added for a few pieces. Maybe unusually not well served by the sound system, which was in general of above average quality, his contribution seemed not to interact well with the core ofthe group. The vocal pieces - the cuttingly ironic Netekim and the dramatic Kapilar - were a special higlight with the audience, but the whole concert received a well-deserved final standing ovation with encore requests, a fitting conclusion to the program.

Thanks to the efforts of the Ankara Jazz Society, the festival is taking roots, growing and these are signs that it can become in time a major international event.