This is an interview with pianist Tuluğ Tırpan made for the Turkish Jazz Magazine by Can Ergelmiş in 2013.
Tuluğ Tırpan’s latest album, My Blue Color, was released last month through Lin Records. It is her last stop in journey, which started with My Blue Color, My Red Color and My Green Color. According to Tırpan, this new trio album that he recorded with Volkan Hürsever and Ediz Hafızoğlu is “one of his best works until now by far.”
We decided to do one of our regular meetings in Emirgan on the shores of Bosphorus in an autumn morning following the release of the album. He openly told me about his new album, current projects, his thoughts on the Turkish jazz world; we conversed for a long time. Tuluğ Tırpan really is a very valuable musician and artist. Talking with him makes one ponder not only about topics concerning music, but also about the fundamental issues about the world. My Blue Color is an important work in Tırpan’s music journey…
I have started to become more mainstream like many other artists; I started to think that my playing and compositions should have identities that people will get to like. To be honest, I never have been really worried about this, but people can have certain expectations within the aesthetics of jazz and these expectations are always in the back of the musician’s mind. I put these mainstream worries aside during the conceiving of this album, and played as I wanted and loved. I am not concerned about releasing an album that would become a hit: blue is a color that symbolizes freedom, and I fully declare my own musical freedom in My Blue Color!
I saw what an important decision it is to value artistic freedom while playing and recording. You really play better when you play something you believe in; you are more proud to share it with others; you can follow your own legend more clearly when you reflect upon the past. One gets rid of such concerns around the age of forty, and this album marks as a starting point of me leaving these concerns behind. It is one of the best works I have done by far. Ultimately, when you find two other people who will walk with you on the same path during your journey, you should just keep walking with them. Then you become nameless, you become the journey if you can flow together. And so we did, we didn’t know what the final notes would be when we played the first ones. We only played and let ourselves go with the flow…
Also, I have worked with a producer for the first time for this album. Our producer was Eren Gümrükçüoğlu. Eren is considerably younger than me, he is currently studying at MIAM; he really likes modern music. He received his education in Berklee on jazz composition, film music and performance. I was really good friends with Eren even before this album, but Eren is more than just a really good friend: He is also a great listener. You don’t need to explain much to Eren, he understand where you are trying to go with your playing and why you can’t just by listening. He doesn’t intervene mushc, he only gives you a gentle push and supports you correctly so that you can go where you envisioned in your mind.
Studio process is hard for all musicians, because the musician, no matter what kind of a career he has, is fragile before going into the studio. If he is at the beginning of his career he is anxious about just starting out, if he has progressed in his career, then he is anxious about achieving his previous standard. Eren was incredibly helpful during this process, not only by making my job easier but by making me feel confident. I even told him “You are my Manfred Eicher.” Eren’s role in my life is as important as Manfred Eicher’s in Keith Jarrett’s life.
We have recently recorded another album which includes compositions by Ali Perret and Nikolas Simion, a Romanian tenor saxophone player whom I admire. Eren Gümrükçüoğlu will be its producer as well. I plan to release this album next spring.
Sabri Tuluğ Tırpan (Photo: www.tulugtirpan.net)
Tırpan’s artistic perspective and sensitivities that formed due to his life experience should be investigated in order to understand the ideas in the album.
My Blue Color embodies an entirely different aspect compared to other Tuluğ Tırpan records: The entire album was built around a Balkan framework. The trip interpreted three Balkan folk songs, Jovano Jovanke, Ajde Jano and Vec Odavno, as well as two of Tuluğ Tırpan’s own compositions: Eski Ev and Tuluz Buluz.
I believe some things in life happen due to coincidences. One of these things is three musician working together repeatedly… In our day, musicians play with many different people simultaneously, and are able to take stage with the same group of people merely 6-7 times a year. We are lucky that we were able to perform together frequently with Ediz and Volkan last year. We played for the sake of playing, in order to discover each other. As you play, the repertoire starts shaping up, because you start to see where the musicians you play with are going with their music. If you are a clever musician, you start to follow their path, and they start to follow yours.
Trio music is similar to Hegel’s dialect in form. You offer a thesis, the other musician offers an antithesis, then a third musician offers a synthesis. If you can create music within this trinity, then the result is incredible. We see the same kind of formation in the Keith Jarrett Trio, Bill Evans Trio or Charlie Haden’s trios that we like so much. The egos are filed down and the only concern becomes creating something together. This happened in our situation. We are just starting out on this path, but I feel like we are doing well.
Ediz was born in Bulgaria. His grandfather is an important master of the strings. As far as I know, Ediz started performing with a string instrument as well, then he proceeded to playing local percussion instruments and participated in many local festivals. Then he continued on building his career in Turkey and now he is undoubtedly one of the best drummers in the country.
Volkan is from Kosovo. He is firm like a cement and gruff like all people from Kosovo are. One of the most important characteristics a double bass player should have is being firm. Ron Carter told me this. There are some trees, they are so tough and firm that you cannot wrap your arms around their trunk. Storms come and go, everything that surrounds the tree gets demolished, but it stands undamaged. Similarly, we get lost in our playing, we run, we fly, but Volkan stands firm like cement. We can get out of the storm and gather around him to embrace another musical idea. If he would just go with the flow like Miroslav Vitous occasionally does, maybe we wouldn’t be able to meet each other at a common musical idea and would have to fade out at the end of the piece.
We laugh… I was listening to a quintet record while I was driving to meet Tuluğ Tırpan. They were playing with a rare energy, and throwing great ideas around. Then the piece progressed and ended with a fade out. I had listened to this sad fade out just an our prior to our interview, got upset by this loss of high energy that they seemed to achieve in the beginning of the piece. So I really understood what Tırpan was talking about…
There is a melancholic feeling towards the disintegration of the Balkans in this album. I personally lived through the Serbian massacre in Austria. As Turkish students, we went to Bosnia to help the citizens there by bringing them food and clothes. They sent up a tented camp in Salzburg, a lot of our friends worked there. Ultimately, we all felt an immense amount of pain. We watched the massacre happen just an hour’s drive away from us. We watched it at home, through our televisions. We all did! The whole world did! Those were very dark days…
I performed the opening concert at the Ramadan Festival in Sarajevo this year. We performed my work called ‘Mevlana Simyacı Senfonik Şiir’. I had the opportunity to see Bosnia. The massacre took a huge toll. One can still see the effect of the bombs and the bullets in the cities. Our friend who was showing us around said “We wake up every morning with this trauma.” Imagine, your neighbour, who asked you for salt or eggs for the past forty years when he ran out, the same one who sent his kids to your house after school when he was busy—he wakes up one morning and points his gun at you. And there are no natural resources involved. This fight wasn’t about petrol, copper or silver. It is ethnic cleansing. I am at a loss for words; even the thought itself is devastating…
Three of us felt this while playing Jovano Jovanke, for example. You can feel how austere these pieces are, and how they embody a meaningful melancholy. You can feel these condensed feelings in the album.
I also am very close friends with a lot of Balkan musicians. I played the opening concert for the Balkan Fever Festival with Matilda Leko a long time ago. We had an amazing band, a Croatian double bass player, a Serbian drummer and a Bulgarian trumpet player… We really were representing the Balkans.
I have worked a lot with Nikolas Simion and he has taught me a lot. I think Nikolas is one of the most important tenor saxophone players in the world still alive today. He currently resides in Cologne, and is one of the leading names of the neoclassical movement. He knows Bela Bartok and Gurtag well. Romanians have a talent for jazz, and they also know their folk music well. I actually have a long lasting relationship with Balkan jazz since that period. Zülfikarpasiç is one of my favorite pianists.
Of course, the emphasis on the Balkans in My Blue Color is not a marketing element, it is something that has seeped to the depths of the album.
Sabri Tuluğ Tırpan (Photo: www.tulugtirpan.net)
The attention should be drawn to an important trend at this point. Nowadays every region combines their local sensitivities with the traditions of jazz and create new and fresh formations under the roof of jazz.
The leading names in the music industry say “We have dried up Cuba, now let’s do the same to somewhere else.” First, the most well known and mainstream artists from that region emerge. Then they go in deeper, they go down another layer and then meaningful things start shaping up. A generation that knows what is happening, who also listens to other things at the same time, comes to being. And then the music gains more depth. The same thing happened in Scandinavia, Cuba and Brazil. Now it’s the turn for the Balkans and the Caucasian region. Balkans are ahead of us in this sense, because they are more integrated to the global jazz scene, through Tomazs Stanko, Nikolas Simion… I am recently seeing a similar kind of beautiful thing happening in the Caucasian region lately.
A Balkan corner will slowly form in the festivals; I see great benefit in us getting ourselves a corner as well. Our mainstream musicians will achieve good things as well, but it is important that we have our own place in the flow of things. It is important to nourish this circle and direct some musicians towards it. I think this is the only way we can exist in the global arena and create a movement.
On the other hand, we have musicians who give concerts in international festivals and show the world the way Turkish people interpret jazz. I think we are getting somewhere nowadays; Tuluğ Tırpan also agrees. But we still have some important deficiencies.
Financial sources are very important. If you have the sources, then you can go on with what you are doing. However, if not, then you close shop, and try something else. Music has always progressed this way. If King Ludwig II hadn’t built an opera house for Wagner and gave him a salary, he wouldn’t have been able to write Parsifal in five years! Who can write such a piece in just five years?
Ivan Eröd, my favorite composition teacher, used to say “Do you know, whenever several musicians get together, they always talk about money. When three or four bankers get together, though, they always talk about arts and music.” Yes, this is so. It is the same in Europe: Mozard was the court composer, and Miles Davis used to say “I am making this music because I need gas for my Ferrari.” I think film production is very similar to album production. The director makes the movie, and he hands it in. After that, it is very important to advertise the movie, enter it to the festivals, and that it receives awards… Albums have to go through a similar process. However, our popular music cannot go through this process. Popular music embodies ideas coming solely from our geography, and its audience is Turkish speaking people. Instrumental music, on the other hand, has the chance to reach the whole world; there marketing is pivotal, it is important to send the appropriate albums to the appropriate places, to be in the right place at the right time.
The new jazz musician profile shows more competition; they are more careful about the way they dress, the way their album covers look, the way their radio interviews sound. They are more at ease with popular music.
We can have deficiencies in the business aspect of music. However, young musicians are recording high quality albums, release new work and try to expand to overseas. And the quality of our music is on the rise…
I really like the young jazz musicians nowadays. I was in my 30s when I recorded my first album and I greatly benefited from this timing. I played in Ozan Musluoğlu’s recently released album My Best Friends Are Pianists, so did Ali Perret, my mentor, teacher and dear friend. A lot of fellow pianists from the younger generation took part as well. I listened to the album and I was impressed. Everybody has a story, and they tell their own stories in their own styles. For example, Uraz Kıvaner, Çağrı Sertel, Can Çankaya… They are all very talented pianists.
The topics of creating our own corner in jazz festivals, creating our own identity and put emphasis on this identity aren’t in the spotlight yet, but just you wait! They are creating a really strong foundation for this, and they are at great places in their musical journey, they create some great work. There is seriousness and dedication involved. They spend time on their playing, touch and sounds… These are such great things. There was a solid rhythm section, a double bass player and a drummer (Ferit Odman played the drums in the album) who can enter each and every one of these pianists’ worlds! I think Turkish jazz is living one of its golden eras right now.
This involves effort, it isn’t something that can happen in a couple of years. We have to create a tradition that would last for tens of years and is feasible with long-term planning. It doesn’t have to be huge but we need to believe in the power of sustainability. It is important to think long-term and to protect this perspective.
There are some elements necessary for the development of music in a country: Musician, producer, listener, schools and jazz venues… We have touched upon the musicians, producers, schools; let’s talk about the listeners.
Jazz is a part of the urban culture. This urban culture develops with its metros, urban planning, libraries, the formation of its social scenes, its taxes. When we speak of jazz being a part of this culture, it means that it urbanism needs to progress in order for the development of the jazz listeners in Turkey to happen. I used to listen to jazz frequently when I used to live in Vienna. Because I would get on the metro on Taubstumengasse, right by my house, go three stops towards Porgy & Bess. Why shouldn’t I, should I just sit at home? I would attend five, six concerts per week.
Listening to music being performed live is a way of socialization, and this kind of socialization can only happen when people are given the necessary opportunities. Interest in jazz will increase as urban planning in Turkey improves and makes transportation and logistics easier.
Sabri Tuluğ Tırpan (Photo: www.tulugtirpan.net)
Listening to My Blue Color project live will surely be incredibly exciting.
We will perform in Porgy & Bess in Vienna next year. We will most probably end up performing in Graz and Salzburg while we are there. There will be a five-six concert tour in Austria. We will most probably perform in Bucharest Jazz Festival. We will play in Istanbul and some other cities in Turkey. We will give a concert in Kuşadası Jazz Festival on the 30th of June. The presentation of the album will be in Borusan either in February or March.
The musician listens to Vijay Iyer, Gerald Clayton, Jason Lindner, Robert Glasper and Richie Beirach from the current jazz pianists. His friendship with Trilok Gurtu holds a special place for him.
Trilok Gurtu is an important source for me. Our every meeting is a new enlightenment for me. I can say that I am living the happiest years of my life in this aspect. Recently we did a recording session in his house in Hamburg, we were together from 10 in the morning to 10 at night.
We recorded his Trumpets album, dedicated to Miles Davis. In the album Nils Peter Molvaer, Ibrahim Maalouf and Paolo Fresu play two pieces each. Hasan Kaldırım is featured in one piece, with my suggestion, it is very original… An Indian trumpet player plays in one piece, an American musician in another. Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra’s lead trumpet player Matthias Höfs is featured in one piece as well.
Observing Trilok is like attending the school for me. How he plays over the bars, how he thinks about 16 bars… He lives in the moment while he plays a single note, giving all of the notes their dues. Every single thing is important for him. He plays as if every single time will be his last time playing. This is an unusual kind of dedication and concentration.
The concept of ‘being in the moment’ is one of the most important elements of Eastern philosophy. Being aware of oneself, one’s life, the world and working towards increasing this awareness. Getting rid of the anxieties of the past and the future, and being fully present in the moment… And it was inevitable that the topics discussed would lead from technical details of music to the fundamentals of being human during this conversation we had with Tırpan.
Tırpan, in his full honesty, wrote his emotions and thoughts in musical notes in My Blue Color. It is, in the most basic terms, a musician with something to say expressing his thoughts with his own style in a musical sense. It is his first stop in his musical journey he is taking with Volkan Hürsever and Ediz Hafızoğlu…
I am eager to witness the rest of this journey and for my next conversation with Tuluğ Tırpan in Emirgan.
