General info and events, +90 (212) 244 63 27, +90 (532) 244 57 78
Jazz concerts are held every night except Sunday. Seating is is on a first-come-first-served basis, starting at 20:30. Reservations are kept until 21:15 (i.e., 15 minutes before the music starts). Tables for two are limited. All other tables are shared.
Time: 21:30
Bookings by email (focan@nardisjazz.com) or telephone: +90 (212) 244 63 27
Price: 800TL
Tuesday November 4
Bora Çeliker Quartet ‘Tis Autumn’
Guitarist Bora Çeliker, who is also a singer, is both a highly experienced performer of mainstream jazz and blues, and 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, playing in a group that was headed by Janusz Szprot, a Polish musician who had come to Ankara to head up the Jazz Department of Bilkent University. Two years later, in 2001, he started playing in the Alan Ginter Quartet with the legendary Turkish pianist, saxophonist and composer Tuna Ötenel, and that same year began a two-year stint as presenter of the ‘Blues Machine’ programme on 92.3 Radio Kozmos in Istanbul. Bora Çeliker, who carried out postgraduate studies in Performance at the Bilgi University Music Department, has in the past played with a number of leading Turkish jazz musicians including Nilüfer Verdi, Neşet Ruacan, Cem Aksel, Erdal Akyol, Burak Bedikyan, Kağan Yıldız, Ferit Odman, İmer Demirer and Selim Selçuk, as well as with former Bilgi University jazz teacher Ricky Ford. In 2005, he performed with the guitarist Sarp Maden as the opening act at a Jethro Tull concert in Istanbul’s Harbiye Open-Air Theatre.
Çeliker and his fellow-musicians – Kaan Bıyıkoğlu (piano), Oğuz Alp Erdoğmuş (double bass) and Burak Cihangirli (drums) – will be performing numbers on the theme of ‘autumn’ by Vernon Duke, Kurt Weill, Bernice Petkere, Woody Herman, Bob Moses, Wayne Shorter, Richie Beirach and Kenny Garrett.
Saturday November 8
Evrim Özşuca Quintet
Evrim Özşuca studied the cello at Bilkent University, Ankara, before graduating from the Music Department of Bilgi University, Istanbul, as a jazz vocalist. In 2005, she won the Nardis Jazz Club’s Young Jazz Vocalists Competition and the International Young Jazz Vocalists Competition at the Nömme Jazz Festival in Estonia. Following this, she gave concerts with jazz trumpeter Ted Curson in New York and Paris. In 2008, she took part in Ali Perret’s ‘Atonal Standards’ project. Evrim Özşuca, whose style includes elements of blues, R&B, soul and funk, has been teaching jazz vocal since 2003, and sometimes performs with ‘Effective’, the group she founded in 2009. On this occasion, she will be accompanied by Tugay Genç (saxophone), Can Tutuğ (vibraphone), Barış Öztürk (double bass) and Sarp Evren (drums).
Thursday November 13
Yahya Dai Quartet ‘Remembering Ben Webster’
This concert, which has a connection with the Garanti BBVA Bank (who are offering a reduction of 20% on the ticket price for holders of their bank cards), features a group led by Yahya Dai, a saxophonist born in Ankara in 1963. He learned his art while playing for many years with the legendary pianist, saxophonist, composer and pedagogue Tuna Ötenel, and from Tomasz Szukalski, his teacher at the Jazz Department of Bilkent University in Ankara. In the past, he has participated in a three-month workshop with Mike McMullen (in the USA in 2000), in the 2000 World Music Festival at U.C. Davis (University of California), in the Joshua Redman Remix Competition in 2002, in festivals in New York, Prague and London, and in Cahit Berkay’s ‘Film Music’ project. In 2005, he played the saxophone on Ayşe Tütüncü’s highly-regarded Panayır album. In 2011, his quartet recorded an album entitled Ümitvar Mavi. Musicians with whom Yahya Dai has played in the past include John Scofield, Marcus Miller, Russell Malone, Kazimierz Jonkisz, Bugge Wesseltoft, Joshua Redman and Lawrence ‘Butch’ Morris. Accompanying him on this occasion will be Kaan Bıyıkoğlu (piano), Kağan Yıldız (double bass) and Burak Cihangirli (drums).
Friday November 14
İpek Dinç Band
Vocalist İpek Dinç, a graduate of the Istanbul University Faculty of Chemistry, began her career in music in 2005, when she made the acquaintance of the late pianist and singer İlham Gencer (1925-2023). She first came to prominence when she won the Nardis Club’s Young Jazz Vocalists’ Competition in 2009, and as a result was invited to sing at the Nömme Jazz Festival in Tallinn, Estonia. Accompanying her on November 14 will be Önder Focan (guitar), Koray Üsgülen (Hammond organ and piano), Baran Say (double bass) and Derin Bayhan (drums).
Saturday November 15
Sibel Köse Quintet
The inimitable Sibel Köse, dubbed ‘the Queen of European Jazz’, is a vocalist of outstanding talent. She began singing jazz while studying Architecture at the Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ), Ankara; during this time, she performed with the legendary Turkish jazz pianist, saxophonist and composer Tuna Ötenel. She says she learned a lot from him, though he never gave her formal lessons. The second influence on her artistic development was Janusz Szprot, a Polish musician who came to Ankara in the 1990s to head up the Jazz Department of Bilkent University. He invited her to attend a summer school for jazz vocalists in his native country, and she received tuition there from Deborah Brown and Rachel Gould, two singers from the USA. A third major influencer was the French trumpet-player, composer and arranger Jean-Loup Longnon; she has recently made recordings with his big band at the Studios Ferber in Paris.
Last time I saw Sibel perform at Nardis, I wrote in my blog: ‘Over the three-and-a-bit years since I last had the privilege of hearing her, nothing of her energy has been lost: if anything, her singing is more powerful than ever. She hits the high notes with tremendous force and faultless intonation; she improvises creatively with nonsense words even more frequently than before, fashioning them into meaningful episodes within the song as a whole; and her emotional range remains unrivalled within my experience of jazz singers. All this is mixed in with both a searing sincerity and a wry sense of humour. How could anyone fail to enjoy and appreciate her artistry?’
Her fellow-musicians on November 15 will be Engin Recepoğulları (tenor saxophone), Kürşad Deniz (piano), Kağan Yıldız (double bass) and Derin Bayhan (drums).
Saturday November 22
Dilek Sert Erdoğan Band
Dilek Sert Erdoğan, known as Turkey’s most powerful soul vocalist, has a voice that is described as ‘black satin’, her style being a mixture of jazz, soul, funk, blues and improvisation. Born in 1976, she graduated in English Language and Literature from Istanbul University. During her student years, she read the English news on the BBC Forex radio station, worked as Foreign News Coordinator for the ‘Kanal D’ TV channel, and prepared radio programmes for ‘Atlas’ magazine. She is also an actress. *Moments*, her first album (on which all the songs were written by the lady herself), was also the first original soul album in English to appear in Turkey. Released in 2013, it soon became the best-selling jazz album in the country. Accompanying her on this occasion will be Koray Üsgülen (Hammond organ and piano), Sıtkı Sırtanadolu (guitar), Burak Atlı (bass guitar) and Erhan Seçkin (drums).
Thursday November 27
Jef Giansily Trio
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’.) At the concert on 27 November, he will be accompanied by Kağan Yıldız (double bass) and Burak Cihangirli (drums).
