Barış Doğukan Yazıcı at Bova,
October 12
Image: Bizim Caz
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, towards the Taksim end of İstiklal Caddesi, regularly hosts some of Turkey’s finest jazz musicians. They organise events every day of the month, and are especially strong on modern and improvised jazz. The performance space is small, to say the least, and advance booking is advised (sitting on a crowded staircase isn’t particularly comfortable). The staff are friendly and helpful, even in the face of unreasonable requests. Here are seven 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.)
Tickets and prices: see Instagram account.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 05
Bova turns 9: Ercüment Orkut High Five
Ercüment Orkut is a pianist, composer and arranger who is definitely worth listening to. Born in İstanbul in 1984, he received many years of training in piano, composition and conducting at the Mimar Sinan University State Conservatoire before graduating in 2005. In addition, he has in the past taken lessons in jazz piano from Aydın Esen (in 2004), as well as from Dan Zemelman and Peter Horvath (in San Francisco in 2007). At the Nomme Jazz Festival in Tallinn, Estonia in 2009, he represented Turkey as a pianist, and was placed second by the jury and first by popular acclaim. In addition, he has played at major events such as the Istanbul and Akbank Jazz Festivals, and has undertaken projects with many of Turkey’s leading jazz musicians. His first solo album, Low Profile, was released by Kalan Müzik in 2015; his second album, Persona, has recently been released by Lin Records.
21:30
MONDAY, OCTOBER 12
Jam Session hosted by Barış Doğukan Yazıcı
Trumpet-player Barış Doğukan Yazıcı, born in Istanbul in 1988, studied his chosen instrument at the Istanbul University State Conservatoire. Having begun performing as a soloist at an early age (his interest in jazz was encouraged by his father, a jazz enthusiast), in 2006 he represented his country at the ‘Young Euro Classic’ festival at the Konzerthaus Berlin. In 2020 he completed a postgraduate course in Jazz Performance at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA. Since then, he has performed with a large number of Turkey’s leading jazz musicians, and has shared a stage with famous names such as Christian McBride, Kurt Elling, Paquito D’Rivera, Keyon Harrold, Omar Hakim, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Robby Ameen, Alain Pérez, Roy Hargrove and Joshua Redman. He says the living musician he admires the most is pianist Kenny Baron, and describes his greatest ambition as being to open a jazz club somewhere in Istanbul’s Historic Peninsula.
21:30
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13
Jef Giansily / Sarp Maden with Alper Yılmaz & Berke Köymen
Pianist and composer Jef Giansily, whose style is described as ‘a combination of lyricism and rhythms that vary according to changing moods’, was born in Paris in 1980, and is now resident in Istanbul. His album Sketches appeared in 2009; in May this year, meanwhile, he released an album entitled Insight in Paris. He says this album is ‘an invitation to look inside ourselves’.
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’). In my review of a concert involving him and the Israeli saxophonist Gilad Atzmon, 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 Gansily/Maden duo are accompanied on this occasion by Alper Yılmaz (bass guitar) and Berke Köymen (drums).
21:30
MONDAY, OCTOBER 19
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’). In my review of a concert involving him and the Israeli saxophonist Gilad Atzmon, 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.’
21:30
MONDAY, OCTOBER 26
Tamer Temel 3+1
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. 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 leadingTurkish 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.
21:30
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28
Cenk Erdoğan Trio
Guitarist, composer and arranger 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. Born in Istanbul in 1979, he studied Composition at Bilgi University (Istanbul), graduating in 2001. There, he also studied guitar technique and self-expression with Kamil Özler, Neşet Ruacan and Şevket Akıncı, meanwhile receiving tuition in composition and musical arrangement from Aydın Esen, Ali Perret, Can Kozlu, Kamil Özler and Lawrence ‘Butch’ Morris. 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 in the USA. In 2009, he won a prize for the music he wrote for the film Issız Adam; he also writes music for television series. The recordings he has so far produced are İle (2008), Kavis (2011), Kara Kutu (2014), Fermata (2018) and Lahza II (2019).
21.30
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30
20:00 Özgü Dündar & friends
22:30 İpek Göztepe Quartet
Vocalist Özgü Dündar received her musical education at the Çukurova University State Conservatoire in Mersin, where she studied the piano. She has in the past sung in choruses in Mersin and Adana, and has been a member of several groups including ‘Longplay’, ‘Euphonia’ and ‘Babas’. In 2024, she began receiving training in jazz vocal at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA. A former prizewinner at the İKSV Young Jazz Competition and the Nardis Jazz Club’s Young Jazz Vocalists competition, she is currently studying the trumpet with Barış Doğukan Yazıcı, and is taking lessons in jazz vocal from Sibel Köse. Her repertoire includes pieces of her own composition as well as jazz standards.
İpek Göztepe, whose musical education began in the piano department of the Istanbul University State Conservatoire, subsequently sang Turkish classical and Western music in various choirs. Her interest in jazz and soul dates from 2013, when she began appearing at local venues as a lead singer. In 2017 she won the 13th Nardis Young Jazz Vocalists Competition and the İKSV’s Young Jazz Competition, which entitled her to attend the Pulawy Jazz Workshop in Poland. Then, in 2024, she completed a course in jazz vocal at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz, Austria. Her teachers in Turkey have included Güç Başar Gülle (for jazz theory) and Randy Esen (the wife of Aydın Esen) for jazz singing. She is currently continuing her education at the Yıldız University Communication Design Department.
Barış Doğukan Yazıcı at Bova,
October 12
Image: Bizim Caz
