Performances + Events
Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol
In 2011, faculty member Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol published his first book, The Musician Mehters, (The Isis Press), about the so-called “Ottoman Janissary”/marching processional bands. That project led to a series of events on February 27 that will culminate in a concert program called Zildjians, Atlantic Records and Jazz: The Legacy of Istanbul in America, which will explore the influence of Mehter bands, and the influence two “Ottoman-Istanbul families” — the Zildjians and the Erteguns — have had on the art form.
Centuries ago, Sanlıkol said, the Zildjian family, famous for the cymbals they have long since manufactured in Norwell, Mass., made the instruments in Istanbul for Mehter bands. Just as the Zildjian name has been associated with iconic artists working in various styles, from orchestral music to jazz, so too the Ertegun name has been inextricably linked to Atlantic Records, a company Ahmet Ertegun founded with Herb Abramson and whose jazz division Ahmet’s brother, Nesuhi, was soon brought onboard to run. The Zildjians and the Erteguns, Sanlıkol said, were “elite Ottoman-Istanbul families” who “came to play these vital roles in music history.”
“Why is it that it was these Istanbul families that ended up changing music history forever?” Sanlıkol asked rhetorically.
The February 27 concert will feature a performance by a Mehter band, the world premiere of a piece by Sanlıkol titled Echoes from a Forgotten Past, which combines a Mehter band and the NEC Jazz Orchestra, and highlights from Atlantic Records’s jazz catalog. Faculty drummer Nasheet Waits will perform on Sanlıkol’s piece, faculty saxophonist Mark Zaleski will play zurna — a double-reed instrument — with the Mehter band that opens the program, and renowned saxophonist Sam Newsome will perform with the NEC Jazz Orchestra under the direction of Ken Schaphorst, co-chair of NEC’s Jazz Studies Department.
“I really admire Mark for what he signed up for,” Sanlıkol said, referring to Zaleski learning to play a wholly unfamiliar instrument in a Mehter band, whose instrumentation includes zurnas, trumpets, nekkare (small kettledrums), davuls (bass drums), cymbals, and kös (large kettledrums). “What Mark, the students, and Ken are jumping into is big,” Sanlıkol said. “There’s quite a bit of risk-taking” involved. His piece, Sanlıkol said, “is an ambitious work” that brings the Mehter band into the jazz orchestra setting. “It is not easy,” he said.
“The instrumentation and timbre of the jazz big band,” Sanlıkol said, “is directly connected to the Mehter bands.” That heritage, and those of the Zildjian and Ertegun families, will be celebrated not only through the February 27 concert program but in events earlier in the day, including a Mehter band workshop, presentations by Sanlıkol and John Edward Hasse, curator emeritus of American Music at the Smithsonian, and a panel discussion, moderated by Schaphorst, featuring Sanlıkol, Hasse, and Ingrid Monson, the Quincy Jones Professor of African American music at Harvard University.
Learn more about Zildjians, Atlantic Records and Jazz: The Legacy of Istanbul in America, a presentation of NEC’s Jazz Studies Department and Intercultural Institute, of which Sanlıkol is director.
