Çağıl Kaya at Bova, 14 November
Bova Jazz Club (Bova Caz Klübü)
Şehit Muhtar Mah., Mis Sok. No 17, Beyoğlu, 34435 İstanbul
Instagram: @bova_sahne
bovasahne@gmail.com
Tel: +90 212 243 44 61
The Bova Jazz Club is located in Mis Sokak, which leads off İstiklal Caddesi between Taksim Square and the Hüseyin Ağa Mosque at the entrance to Atıf Yılmaz Sokak (formerly ‘Sakız Ağacı Sokak’).
The nearest metro station is Taksim, on the M2 line. From Taksim Square, enter İstiklal Caddesi. Once you have passed the French Consulate-General and Institut Français, Mis Sokak will be the third side street on your right – the one after Zambak Sokak and Bekar Sokak. The Bova club is on the left-hand side of Mis Sokak, just before you get to the first crossroads.
This club regularly hosts some of Turkey’s finest jazz musicians, being especially strong on modern and improvised jazz. However, the performance space on the first floor is small, to say the least, and advance booking is definitely advised (sitting on a crowded staircase isn’t particularly comfortable). I have found the staff to be friendly and helpful, even in the face of unreasonable requests. Here are 7 events not to miss.
Their programme for the coming month is usually released on Instagram. I have asked them to put it on their website as well, but so far no joy – the site has been ‘under construction’ for years now. (We live in hope.)
Time: 21:30 (doors open 21:00)
Tickets and prices: see Instagram account.
MONDAY, 02 NOVEMBER
Sarp Maden 5 Sarp Maden is one of Turkey’s finest jazz guitarists and composers, with his own unique style that combines outlandish chords, atonal sweetness and sudden swoops with a good deal of agonised gut wrenching thrown in (his name translates as ‘precipitous metal’). I first reviewed him in June 2018, when he played with pianist Çağrı Sertel at the İKSV building in Şişhane as part of the İKSV Jazz Festival. The next concert involving him that I attended was in January of the following year, when he joined forces with the Israeli saxophonist Gilad Atzmon at the Touché Club in the Zorlu Center. In my review of that concert, I wrote: ‘Even when Sarp is playing a slow, floating melody in a high register, his liquid, light-filled tone always has a wistful edge to it – a tortured timbre if ever there was one. And, of course, the atonal arpeggio outbursts are ineffably Scorpionic in their asperity (guess what sign he is?) – hunks of screaming metal hurtle towards you like out-of-control motorbikes cartwheeling through the air as they spin off the race track; indeed, you almost have to duck.’ The third occasion was in September 2021, when he gathered together the members of his ertswhile group ‘Quartet Muartet’ – pianist Genco Arı, bassist Alp Ersönmez and drummer Volkan Öktem – at a concert in a former shoe factory in Beykoz that I described as ‘inspirational’.
Time: 21:30 (doors open 21:00)
Tickets and prices: see Instagram account.
WEDNESDAY, 04 NOVEMBER
Bora Çeliker: ’Tis Autumn
Guitarist Bora Çeliker, who is also a singer, is not just a highly experienced performer of mainstream jazz and blues but also a gifted improviser. At university in Ankara, he founded blues groups by the name of ‘The Crawling Snakes’, ‘The Jukes’ and ‘The King Bees’. Having played mainly blues up to that time, in 1999 he launched out into jazz, participating in a group that was led by Janusz Szprot, a Polish musician who had come to Ankara to head up the Jazz Department of Bilkent University. Two years later, he started playing in the Alan Ginter Quartet with the legendary Turkish pianist, saxophonist and composer Tuna Ötenel. Bora Çeliker has in the past played with a number of leading Turkish jazz musicians, as well as with former Bilgi University jazz teacher Ricky Ford. At the concert on 4th November, he and his group play a selection of pieces on the general theme of autumn.
Time: 21:30 (doors open 21:00)
Tickets and prices: see Instagram account.
MONDAY, 09 NOVEMBER
Volkan Topakoğlu Quartet
Double-bass player, composer and educator Volkan Topakoğlu specialised in the piano and the cello at the Avni Akyol Fine Arts Lycée in Istanbul, following which he graduated from the Art and Design Faculty of Yıldız Technical University (Istanbul) as a bass guitarist. Following this, he received training in Composition at the Istanbul Technical University (İTÜ) Turkish Music State Conservatoire, and in Jazz at the Istanbul University State Conservatoire. In 2013, he was a finalist at the Nömme Jazz Festival in Estonia. His first album, Birdenbire (‘Suddenly’), appeared in 2015. He currently teaches in the Yıldız Technical University Music Department.
Time: 21:30 (doors open 21:00)
Tickets and prices: see Instagram account.
TUESDAY, 10 NOVEMBER
Eylül Biçer Trio
Eylül Biçer, a native of Istanbul, was introduced to the electric guitar while at Kabataş High School. Having received his first degree from the Department of Music and Performing Arts at Yıldız Technical University (Istanbul), he then carried out postgraduate studies in Sound Technology at the Bahçeşehir University Institute of Science (Istanbul). From 2018 to 2023 he attended the Istanbul University State Conservatoire, where he completed a doctorate thesis entitled ‘Harmonization on Jazz Guitar: A Study on a Method for Developing Harmonic Possibilities in Solo and Duo Performances’. Eylül Biçer, who is also a producer and arranger, regularly plays with some of Turkey’s finest jazz musicians.
Time: 21:30 (doors open 21:00)
Tickets and prices: see Instagram account.
SATURDAY, 14 NOVEMBER
20.00 Jasmine Tutku: Soft Fire Groove
22:30 Çağıl Kaya
I can find very little information on Jasmine Tutku Teber except that she frequently performs with ‘Downbeat Collective’, whose style is described as ‘soulful’ and ‘groove’, and that last June she appeared with Randy Esen & Friends at the ‘Vokal Akademi End-of-Year Celebration Concert’ at Bova. I duly apologise to her for the omission.
Vocalist Çağıl Kaya, born in Ankara, gave a large number of concerts with the TRT İzmir Chorus during her student years at Dokuz Eylül University, where she read Musicology. Subsequently, she carried out postgraduate studies in the Music Department of Istanbul University; it was during this time that she launched her professional career, performing pop, rock and funk numbers at various jazz festivals and founding ‘Logos’, her first group, in İzmir. Her first album, entitled Bir Parça Ay Biraz Kuş (‘A Bit of Moon and Some Bird’), appeared in 2014. Three years later, she produced Şimdilik Her Şey Yolunda (‘For the Moment, Everything’s Going OK’), her second album. A performer of considerable theatrical gifts (she believes in using her whole body while singing), Çağıl Kaya has a unique style of vocal improvisation.
Tickets and prices: see Instagram account.
WEDNESDAY, 25 NOVEMBER
Cenk Erdoğan Trio
Cenk Erdoğan, who plays the fretless guitar, has developed a technique that is influenced by traditional Turkish stringed instruments such as the bağlama and the tanbur. His playing style and his compositions, in which he combines jazz harmonies with traditional Turkish melodies, have attracted international attention: in 2004 he was invited to demonstrate his skills at the Berklee College of Music and the Queens College of Music. The recordings he has so far produced are İle (2008), Kavis (2011), Kara Kutu (2014), Fermata (2018) and Lahza II (2019).
Time: 21:30 (doors open 21:00)
Tickets and prices: see Instagram account.
MONDAY, 30 NOVEMBER
Tamer Temel 3
Saxophonist and composer Tamer Temel, born in Istanbul in 1975, began playing jazz while reading Economics at Dokuz Eylül University in Izmir. Having been awarded a scholarship during the 2005 European Jazz Festival, he attended the Siena Master Class summer course in Italy, receiving further tuition from the distinguished saxophonist Mark Turner. He released his first album, Barcelona, in 2010, and this was followed in 2013 by Bir Kedi Kara (‘A Cat Black’). Serbest Düşüş (‘Free Fall’), his most recent album, was released at the end of 2016. Other musicians who have appeared on his albums include guitarists Dave Allen and Eylül Biçer, bassists Masa Kamaguchi and Volkan Topakoğlu, double-bass player Matt Hall, drummers Marc Miralta, Cem Aksel and Volkan Öktem, pianist Serkan Özyılmaz and vibraphonist Kenny Wollesen. Tamer Temel performs with a number of leading Turkish musicians, as well as with ‘Flapper Swing’, a group that keeps alive the musical atmosphere of the roaring 1920s. He currently teaches jazz at Bahçeşehir University (Istanbul). His style is modern, and in my opinion musically very satisfying.
Time: 21:30 (doors open 21:00)
Tickets and prices: see Instagram account
Çağıl Kaya at Bova, 14 November
Nardis Jazz Club November Highlights
