Pianist Baki Duyarlar, (L), and kemençe virtuoso Derya Türkan recently released a new album, 'Kemenjazz'. (Photo: Today's Zaman, Mehmet Yaman)

 

HATICE AHSEN UTKU

 

Some musicians never stop seeking new things and discovering new interactions in music, and this research becomes even more exciting across different genres of music.

The very recent album, a collaboration of pianist Baki Duyarlar and kemençe virtuoso Derya Türkan, “Kemenjazz” is an exemplar of this research. Bringing together the jazz background of Duyarlar and the classical Turkish music background of Türkan, the album itself is something new. Released under label Ada Plak, the album includes the contributions of other prominent musicians like Erdal Akyol, Cem Aksel, Dilek Türkan, Azize and Senova Ulker.

 

“The story of the album goes many years back,” says Duyarlar in an interview with Today's Zaman. “Derya had become a musician at the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) at a very early age at the same studio as my father and my father used to tell us about each other. We had never met but we knew each other's music without knowing each other personally. Later on, after I returned to Turkey from Europe we met at a different group for a different project totally coincidentally. Then we were so influenced by each other's music that we started to think about how we can make music together.”

 

For Duyarlar, one of the most important things was to become friends before collaborating professionally. “We became very good friends while we were thinking how to merge two different instruments, I believe we revealed a very intimate sound as a result of our friendship,” he says. “And of course, this did not happen in just a moment. This is a working process. We discussed it, we performed, we tried, we loved, we renounced and then we tried again. We performed my compositions and Derya's compositions and we produced compositions unique to this project. The thing that I am proud to say is that I made the compositions based on the sounds of Derya's kemençe. That's why I believe that this project has been a very intimate one and this intimacy is conveyed to the listener through the album.”

 

Confirming Duyarlar's account, Türkan acts quite modest in terms of his contribution to the album. “As Baki says, we had been thinking about this album for a very long time,” he says. “But Baki is a very competent compositor. And this project contributed a lot to me as I am not that assertive in making compositions. This is the first time that my composition has been performed in an album.” At this point, Duyarlar objects to what Türkan says. “Well, Derya is much too humble about himself,” he says. “I can say that -- apart from our friendship -- it was almost impossible to realize this project with a person other than Derya. The natural curiosity that Derya has is the most important sense that an artist has to have. I cannot observe this curiosity in most of my colleagues.”

 

Music without categories

 

“The album does not mean that we have concluded our work,” says Türkan. “We continue to work together. We have concerts and maybe we reach a different point as we play together because the more you work the more you discover new things. We both know the theoretical aspect of our music, but theory is never enough; you have to perform it and jazz music is a totally new experience for me.”

 

“I have lots of academician friends who talk about music but can never perform it,” confirms Duyarlar. “But we are happy that we are not confined to the limits of theory.”

 

In this respect, neither Duyarlar nor Türkan strive to define the album within a specific category. “I do not prefer to call this fusion, though I know that everybody will try to categorize the album in either this or that way. They will call this fusion, or cross over music or maybe even world music, which I really dislike as a name,” says Duyarlar. “This is the intimate conversation of two musicians with their instruments; I may call it that way. I think we are searching for ways of survival within the boundaries of music. And what we do is only music, nothing else.”

 

“Actually, we never thought of the categorization of the album. We did not want to think about it either,” notes Türkan. “What is important for us is that many prominent Jazz listeners and critics consider the album a jazz album. But everything is very new for us as well, we are still working on it.”