Just in sync with Motel de Moka’s recommendation of undomondo for Turkish music, our news hound error101 has been digging the crates for some old Turkish music, and apparently 2 great oldies mp3blogs have published some 60’s 70’s Anatolian Rock albums in the same time as well. Has the world at last tapped into this unique time frame in the past with some great music??!? Although there are some newschool, oriental dub stuff coming out of Turkey which we’ll be featuring from time to time soon, I don’t think this genre will fully be revived ever as this music has lots of cultural phenomena going underneath (the westernization of Turkish music) and those factors have all died, leaving Turkish music in the hands of mainstream pop producers with no sense of quality for the last decade. That’s why basically this short era has produced some wonderful music never to be produced again and I hope we can find more of this stuff and get some old gems to reach more people worldwide. –Mersenne.

I’ll be giving this post everything my dusty shelf has to offer. Accept this an apology because I’m kinda ashamed to be so late in appreciating what seems to be my own musical heritage. I mean this is our music, we’ve heard the tunes, we know the names and we respect them for what they are but i wasn’t really aware of the “what they really are” until recently. I was looking for this song (by Ferdi Ozbegen, which is featured right under) and stumbled across a whole community of foreign people who probably knew more about Turkish music from this era than me. Starting with English rock’n roll covers of old Turkish folk songs and turning into something else both funky and Anatolian, they represent a significant part of Turkish culture rather than being nostalgic oldies. If anything worth listening is produced in Turkey, this era is the cause of it all. There is much more to say, but let’s just finalize this emotional moment (or cut the crap) by saying, better late than never:)

Erol Pekcan Orkestrasi: Every solid jazz musician has Erol Pekcan in their background, since he is responsible for the first Turkish jazz album (Jazz Semai, 1978) along with Tuna Otenel and Kudret Öztoprak. He’s no longer with us since ‘94 and like every pre-internet person, i couldn’t get a hold of much info about him other than his music. If anyone knows more about him than what you can find in google, please contribute some info to Wikipedia. Also, please contact us if you have the album.

Erkut Tackin: Erkut Tackin and Durul Gence, both classmates (and later military school dropouts, although his father was a commodore) joined forces with Somer Soyata and a few other friends to form Soyata Grubu “The Soyata Band”, the first ever vocal band in Turkey. Highly inspired by Elvis, he went on to produce rock’n roll, r’n'b, jazz and beat influenced music both with Durul Gence and his friends from Soyata Grubu, with whom he still performs.

Durul Gence: Gence, not only an important name for experimentation in Turkish jazz, also sees himself as a “jazz missionary”, dedicated to make jazz more widely known and performed in Turkey. He still teaches university courses and he even owns a day-care center for kids. He’s the founder of Istanbul Gelisim Orkestrasi, the most crowded big band of it’s time (18 members) which has signed under many of the most acclaimed works of that era. He has formed numerous bands and associations, took part in many international productions and he is best known for his covers like “Hilal”, originally the famous Ottoman janissary march.

Ferdi Ozbegen - Kopruden gecti gelin
Erkut Tackin - Sevmek Istiyorum
Erol Pekcan Orkestrasi - $enlik
Durul Gence - Hilal