------------------------Turkish Fusing Music presents : ------------------------ ----------------------------------OKAY TEMIZ------------------------------------ Interview with "Psyche van het Folk", Radio Centraal producer Gerald Van Waes on 2002-11-2 : -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pvhf : You left already a large history behind, are skilful to the bone, but from all the works I heard from you (only some of them of course :, from between 1969 and now) there always is a certain modesty in what you do. You don't seem to feel the need to prove yourself...? OT : I have so many colours in my mind : I studied classical music. I heard classical music from my mother, and folk music from the Istanbul area and both from the East and Western part of Turkey, the gypsy style, the ud music my mother played with a classic big band orchestra . Then I started learning jazz and dance music, and there at the same I learned to play with time African, South American, Caribbean musicians. I went to India and played with the people there. A lot of colours I see and hear, it's almost too much for me. But when I'm on stage it comes all together. I don't decide anything when it comes to a feeling... Pvhf: Can you call what you bring "World Music" then (or World Fusion music)? OT. Nowadays when they say World Music they mean folk music of even religious music... In fact it are interesting personalities that make the world music, musicians interesting within the world music itself that when they're on stage they commit this with the band they're with, with a repertoire,... Pvhf : Is the constant meeting of other musicians making your style ? OT : I learned from many people. With Oriental Wind I played many years. There we had an African bass player. I learned a lot from him. He gave a lot of ideas for oriental music. Then I have Roman Bunka, a German rock guitarist, and ...? (I couldn't hear his name properly) an interesting Swedish jazz player saxophonist, Indian musicians,.. Then I did want to ask Okay which musician did change his life mostly. I'm not really sure if he understood this question completely because the answer was a bit confusing. I understood such influences were constant and such changes are a continuous flow. Okay continued about how much changed still are in his life. OT : I have not decided yet what do next yet. I cannot make following promises so easily. I have a lot of arrangements for compositions to do for the same orchestra for concerts, even my own songs. (then, recalling my first question he continued..) : I am not doing anything for the prove. If I would do that I would be egoistic. Choosing the style, the musicians, is (something else..)... PvhF : Where did you find this particular band (, namely The Magnetic Band with whom I saw Okay tonight ) ? OT : I played with them in a folk club in Turkey, for 3 months. And then people stopped with it because it was instrumental music. That's very hard to play in Turkey, very different as in Europe where instrumental music is accepted. In Turkey DJ's , television and radio programs you can only hear vocal music, ALL THE TIME. There does not exist any (musical) criticism against this. There exist only this so called "singing" music. If you would take away the texts from it and you would only hear the singing it would not be singing at all. It's in fact text, nothing else. Human voice does not contribute much there, still even then that remains the most important subject. Without singing they say, there is no music. A very good example : "Green Wave", a 3-days project I did record once I gave to a guy which I meat again after 3 days. I asked him what he thought about the music. He said "there was no music on it, may be there's something wrong with the cassette or something and one canal was left out or so." Then I found out he thought this because there was no singing. It's so difficult to prove the own right of instrumental music. This music has to fight for its rights, while there is so many beautiful music, like Gypsy Music. I always say at radio stations : please make your group without singing, prove yourself, play your instruments and look back. If you look back 40-50 years it was all right. Now it's bad. Pvhf : Back to the days of your playing with Don Cherry. Already then people were saying you had a different style. What was it at those days ? OT : I had a few gigs, and the moved to Sweden in 1976, because I really wanted to know jazz. Before I practised 8-9 hours a day. When I came to Sweden they noticed I knew Jazz but still did not know how the way to play it or how to play the jazz within the World music. There I figured it out. Don Cherry's gigs woke me up. Of course I played Turkish music with the belly dancers. The same kind of melodies we played with Don Cherry. From that time I decided to change my style into jazzy drumming. In that time I was one of the first in the Balkan area, playing Turkish music with jazz drums. Pvhf : I presume there is a jazz scene in Istanbul ? OT : There are nice musicians, but they don't remain so long. PvhF : So there's not much of a large scene ? OT : They play often in hotel lobby, entries in Hotels, in clubs. The problem in Turkey is, once they start to play in a club they play three months, or 1 year and that's a long time. Then it becomes almost bureaucratic, boring, while in Europe you cannot play more than three days in one club. If you play such a long time you loose your feeling. If you play the same music over and again, on the same place, with the same people, you don't get the energy, the love, or any kick. They play jazz but don't live like it. PvhF : How difficult it is for you then in Turkey ? OT : I don't play jazz in Turkey. To play jazz you have to have a good bass player, have to stay with them and have to have another life. I have a lot of other gypsy stuff I can play sometimes. And since 2 years I have my rhythm-atelier with some 4-5 rich ladies, at some rich places, and at other places with some 60 until 400 (at the moment 50) people : Turkish rhythms, (Afro-)Cuban rhythms. I conduct all this. I figured out a lot of people would like to play, even non-musicians. There have fans, e-mail clubs. The same projects exist in firms. A house like NOKIA with for instance 500 people in the house played all together chachacha, samba and Turkish rhythms improvising. PHILIPPE MORRISON from Russia came with 700 people, played 3 days. At the fourth day they gave an unbelievable concert (with maracas, claves, conga's, etc..). This is nowadays my occupation in Turkey. Long time ago I started with spastic children in Sweden. They are very uncontrolled, but when they start to play they forget all this. A very good therapy. Also for Kindergarten. When there was an earthquake in Turkey I worked with traumatic children there and it was a great success. A very nice experience. Pvhf : Rhythm is very important.. OT : I bought rhythm magazines and drum magazines but they never told about that. Rhythm is very important. So last year I decided to put on my birthday 11th of February to promote the World Rhythm Day. I hope people will accept after a while. That day everybody should play whatever they would like. They always pushed rhythm more and behind in the orchestra (/group). Dexter Gorden said this also. Nowadays it's changing because of this very young drummer (-I could not understand his name, I believe his name was Tom ..-), only 12 years old. Pvhf. (continuing my sentence).. I thought rhythm was very important in Turkey ? OT : We have this tradition indeed. In the village they have it, but in groups on the radio, television or showbiz they put the rhythm down. If you ask to use a voice like an instrument that seem to be completely unknown. Last part of this interview was unrecorded, but I still remember the sense of it. Okay was telling me how much American musicians he met had the skills he preferred musicians would have. I asked about the period 1968-1979 that rhythm did have importance in pop music in Turkey, making it for me even more interesting than usual pop music in 4/4th. Okay agreed Turkish music in those days did respect the achievements indeed. But he said while in Turkey they experienced with 7/8 more often he was very surprised that he noticed Indian musicians even experimented with 7 1/2 / 8 and things like that. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ More information at http://progressive.homestead.com/OKAYTEMIZ.html