Email: bovasahne@gmail.com
Telephone: +90 212 243 4461
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Bova Jazz Club highlights February 2025

February 7, 2025 – February 28, 2025
21.30 (doors open 21.00)
Instagram: @bova_sahne

Bova Jazz Club, Şehit Muhtar Mahallesi, Mis Sk. No:17, Beyoğlu, 34435 İstanbul


At Beyoğlu’s Bova Jazz Club all performances start at 21:30 (doors open 21:00) @bova_sahne, +212 243 44 61

Friday February 07

İmer Demirer Quartet

İmer Demirer is a trumpet-player of such outstanding creativity and originality that the remark made by singer Randy Esen while describing how she had chosen him to play on her latest album is entirely justified: “İmer …” she said, “Man, I mean, what can I say … he was the only choice.” In my blog on a concert at the Bova Jazz Club last February, I said that ‘İmer, whose playing is invariably tasteful, was nothing less than magnificent.’

Monday February 17

Raci Pişmişoğlu Dayanışma Gecesi

In my blog on a concert in February last year that involved Raci Pişmişoğlu, I described the guitarist Raci Pişmişoğlu as ‘the ultimate relaxed dude. … A native of İzmir, this grand old man of the guitar began playing jazz with various groups in the late 1980s. From 1995 to 2004 he taught in the Jazz Department of Bilgi University, where he contributed his knowledge and experience to an up-and-coming generation of musicians. … Though this was the first time I had heard him play, it did not take long for me to realise that for Raci Pişmişoğlu, accompanying polytonal free jazz is a mere bagatelle.’

Monday February 24

Tamer Temel 5

Saxophonist and composer Tamer Temel, born in Istanbul, 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’). He regularly plays with pianist Serkan Özyılmaz, guitarist Eylül Biçer, double-bass player Matt Hall and drummer Volkan Öktem, and his most recent album, ‘Serbest Düşüş’ (‘Free Fall’, 2016) was recorded with this impressive list of musicians. His style is modern, and in my opinion musically very satisfying. Tamer Temel currently teaches jazz at Bahçeşehir University.

Thursday February 27

Ali Perret & Meriç Demirkol & İmer Demirer & Volkan Ergen

All four of the performers at this concert have extensive experience of playing improvised music. In my blog on a concert at the Bova Club in 2024, I said the following: ‘As the trumpet-saxophone dialogue progressed it was Meriç, rather than İmer, who let rip, and in doing so contributed a great deal towards the success of the evening in terms of musical satisfaction. It is precisely this lack of restraint that can give improvised music, at its best, a ‘straight-from-the-heart’ quality that is extremely difficult to replicate in a scripted performance. This is not to say, of course, that İmer, whose playing is invariably tasteful, was anything less than magnificent.’

Friday February 28

Ece Goksu 5

Ece Göksu is one of Turkey’s up-and-coming jazz vocalists. A native of Ankara, she sang in the Ankara State Opera and Ballet Children’s Chorus. After receiving training as a pianist at the Hacettepe University State Conservatoire, in 2002 she moved to Istanbul, where she received further tuition in piano at the Mimar Sinan University State Conservatoire. It was while at university in Ankara that she began to take an interest in jazz, and formed her first group. In 2007, she won a Fulbright Scholarship to receive instruction as a jazz vocalist at William Paterson University in New Jersey, where she was taught by Nancy Marano, Cecil Bridgewater, Mulgrew Miller and others, meanwhile taking private lessons from Roberta Gambarini and Jay Clayton.

Ms Göksu, who currently resides partly in New York and partly in Istanbul, has sung at festivals in the United States, Budapest and Dubai as well as in Turkey. In 2014 ‘Slow, Hot Wind’, an album of jazz classics featuring her along with Neşet Ruacan and Volkan Hürsever, was released. ‘Live in Assos’, meanwhile, appeared on March 1 last year. Her repertoire includes bossa nova numbers and songs by Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Billy Joel and other prominent musicians.


Email: bovasahne@gmail.com
Telephone: +90 212 243 4461 ......
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