The Nardis Jazz Club, situated in an old Genoese building in a side street close to the Galata Tower, is Istanbul’s oldest venue of its kind. It has a maximum seating capacity of 120. Customers can have meals served at their tables. Here are some spring highlights.
SATURDAY, MAY 2
21:30
Ece Göksu Quintet
Ece Göksu is one of Turkey’s up-and-coming jazz vocalists. After receiving training as a pianist at the Hacettepe University State Conservatoire (Ankara), in 2002 she moved to Istanbul, where she studied the piano at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts 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 train as a jazz vocalist at William Paterson University in New Jersey. There, she was taught by Nancy Marano, Cecil Bridgewater, Mulgrew Miller and others, meanwhile taking private lessons from Roberta Gambarini and Jay Clayton. Ece Göksu currently resides partly in New York and partly in Istanbul. 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 in 2024; it featured trumpet-player İmer Demirer and guitarist Eylül Biçer. She is currently a teacher in the jazz department of the Istanbul University State Conservatoire.
On May 2nd she will be accompanied by trumpet-player Barış Doğukan Yazıcı, pianist Serkan Özyılmaz, double-bass player Kağan Yıldız and drummer Turgut Alp Bekoğlu.
Price: 800TL
FRIDAY, MAY 8
21:30
Ceren Temel Quintet
Vocalist, songwriter and pedagogue Ceren Temel has a repertoire that encompasses a wide range of styles from bebop to modern jazz. She is noted for her improvisations, her own compositions and her original takes on jazz standards. In Berlin in 2022 she created a project entitled ‘I’m the Voice and I Can’t Be Silenced!’ together with spoken word, performance and visual artist Lady Gaby; making use of loops and vocal improvisations, it focussed on women’s rights and feminism. That year also saw the appearance of The Rewind – her first EP album, consisting of five of her own compositions. From 2019 to 2022, Ceren Temel taught jazz vocal at the Hacettepe University State Conservatoire in Ankara. Since 2023, she has been teaching ear training and basic musicianship at Kadir Has University, Istanbul. On 8th May she will be accompanied by Kaan Karadavut (trumpet), Onat Murat (piano), Enver Muhamedi (double bass) and Burak Bulut (drums).
Price: 1000TL
SATURDAY, MAY 9
21:30
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 Onat Murat (piano), Sıtkı Sırtanadolu (guitar), Baran Say (double bass) and Berke Köymen (drums).
Price: 1000TL
FRIDAY, MAY 15
21:30
Şenova Ülker Quintet
Trumpet-player Şenova Ülker, trained in classical trumpet at the Ankara State Conservatoire and at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University State Conservatoire (in Istanbul), later played in the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra and taught his chosen instrument at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University and Istanbul University State Conservatoires. While still a student, he took lessons in jazz theory from the multi-talented jazz musician and musical arranger Emin Fındıkoğlu, one of Turkey’s most respected pedagogues. Since 2013, Şenova Ülker has been teaching jazz trumpet at Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul. He participates in a large number of festivals both in Turkey and abroad, and his Vikipedi entry lists no less than 28 albums in which he has taken part. On 15th May he will be joined by Bulut Gülen (trombone), Önder Focan (guitar), Yarkın Tuncer (double bass) and Burak Bulut (drums).
Price: 1000TL
SATURDAY, MAY 16
21:30
İpek Dinç Band
Vocalist İpek Dinç, a graduate of the Istanbul University Faculty of Chemical Engineering, began her musical career in 2005, when she met the late jazz pianist and singer İlham Gencer. In 2006, she was a finalist in the Nardis Club’s Young Vocalists Competition. She first came to prominence when she won this competition in 2009, and was subsequently invited to sing at the Nömme Jazz Festival in Tallinn, Estonia. At the concert on 16th May she will be accompanied in a selection of jazz standards and Latin and funk numbers by Barış Doğukan Yazıcı (trumpet), Kaan Bıyıkoğlu (piano), Alper Yılmaz (bass guitar) and Erhan Seçkin (drums).
Price: 1000TL
THURSDAY, MAY 21
21:30
Özge Pınar & Bora Çeliker Quintet: ‘Up Jumped Spring’
Vocalist Özge Pınar, a performer with over 20 years’ experience, was trained in her art first at Yıldız Technical and Bilgi Universities (both in Istanbul), then at the Rotterdam Conservatoire. In 2007, she won the Nardis Young Jazz Vocalists Competition, subsequently appearing at festivals in Turkey and Estonia. Her repertoire – a mixture of the aesthetic of the ‘swing’ era of the 1930s, that of the ‘cool’ jazz of the late 1940s and early 1950s, and bossa nova – combines all three in a pared-down modern style. She is noted for the directness of feeling she conveys and the depth of her musicianship.
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 headed 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.
Up Jumped Spring is the title of a famous song by Freddie Hubbard. Accompanying Özge Pınar and Bora Çeliker on 21st May will be Tamer Temel (clarinet and tenor saxophone), Yaman Zencirci (double bass) and Mustafa Kemal Emirel (drums).
Price: 1000TL
FRIDAY, MAY 22
21:30
Sibel Köse Quintet
The inimitable Sibel Köse, dubbed ‘the Queen of European Jazz’, is a vocalist of consummate professionalism and outstanding talent. Last time I saw Sibel perform at the Nardis Jazz Club, I said the following 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?’
The other members of her quintet are Engin Recepoğulları (tenor saxophone), Kürşad Deniz (piano), Kağan Yıldız (double bass) and Berke Özgümüş (drums).
Price: 1000TL
FRIDAY, MAY 29
21:30
Evrim Özşuca Band
Evrim Özşuca, who has been active as a performer since 1993, studied the cello at Bilkent University, Ankara, before graduating from Bilgi University, İstanbul, 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. As a result of this success, she was invited to sing at international jazz festivals in Finland, Estonia and Lithuania. Following this, she gave concerts with jazz trumpeter Ted Curson (1935-2012) in New York and Paris, and featured on his album In Paris – Live at the Sunside. In 2008 she took part in Turkish pianist, composer and pedagogue Ali Perret’s ‘Atonal Standards’ project. Evrim Özşuca, who has been coaching jazz vocalists since 2003, has a style that includes elements of blues, R&B, soul and funk. She frequently performs with ‘Effective’, the group she formed at the end of 2009. On this occasion, she will be joined by Barış Öztürk (double bass) and Erhan Seçkin (drums).
Price: 1000TL
Özge Pınar at Nardis, May 21
Bova Jazz Club highlights
Zorlu Center highlights
