Türkiye - Istanbul to Izmir

 As we are heading out of Istanbul we stop in the eastern neighbourhood of Kadıköy, where actress and pop singer GülbenErgen was born in 1972.  Apparently she is hugely popular in Türkiye and her albums have sold in the millions.  Here is her just released single called Nanik:

During the height of his career, clarinettist Mustafa Kandıralı (1930-2010) was known as the sound of the holidays as he hosted a morning show on the radio.  As a 13 year old he ran away from his hometown of Kandıra, 150km on foot, to Istanbul.  He dabbled in many different Anatolian genres, as well as making it internationally in the jazz world, even playing with Louis Armstrong once.  Here is just a bit of a flavour of the man, playing an Anatolian dance tune called Bahriye Çiftetellisi:

Next we are heading south along the west coast of Turkey to Bursa.  This is where composer, ney and bendir player Mercan Dede aka DJ Arkin Allen was born in 1966.  Born as Arkın Ilıcalı, he now lives in Canada producing a fusion of traditional acoustic Turkish and other oriental styles with electronic sounds.  He is also heavily influenced by Sufism and much of his music has a hypnotic quality.  He has accumulated many international awards, including best World Music Album by Womex for his 2007 album 800.  Here is a song from that album called Istanbul:

Composer and multi-instrumentalist Özgür Çelik was born in 1979 in the city of Uşak in the interior part of the Aegean region.  He was born into a family of artisan instrument makers and learned to play the instruments his father made, such as the baglama, the kabak kemane and others, from an early age.  He is now a lecturer at the Aegean University.  On his 2012 solo album Öznağme he showcases many of the different instruments he plays.

Next we are heading to the Aegean coast to the city of Bergama, where Roma clarinettist Hüsnü Şenlendirici was born in 1976.  He comes from a long line of musicians with his father and grandfather both playing clarinet and trumpet.  He is now considered one of the foremost proponents of the Turkish clarinet.  On his 2010 album Ege'nin iki yani (Both sides of the Aegean) he combines with Greek Trio Chi for a meeting of cultures across the sea.  Here's a song from this album called Gel Gel Kayikci (Come, come boatman):

Hüsnü Şenlendirici is also part of Izmir based Roma funk band Laço Tayfa.  This 8-piece ensemble combine Anatolian rhythms with contemporary funk and even reggae sounds.  Here is a tune from their 2002 album Hicaz Dolap called Atmaca:

That's it for today.  As usual you follow my virtual travels on my Tripline map.