Express yourself

I will begin by telling you two musical irritations of mine, before I tell you about one night's experience in Istanbul that shattered them both, and those who have seen the film "Crossing the bridges of Istanbul” know why.

One, I am by no means a jazz lover. I love parts of it, don't get me wrong, but there is always a point where the musicians get themselves into some sort of persistent fixation, or an audio-compulsive frenzy. By the time they detach themselves from their instruments I feel my eardrums have been swisscheesed by a swarm of termites. I am fully aware that this is my lack of appreciation of the artform, as I can see the mastery at work, it just happens that when they get possessed by the Jazz wigging bug, It means agony.

Secondly, I am not so keen on “fusion”. Just as I don’t like ginger extract in my cup of espresso in the name of blending of cuisines, most mixing of musical genres leaves me upset about two good things being ruined. (As you see, I don’t even know the proper use of the term fusion)

On this fateful night, I showed up at Babylon music Bar in Istanbul. This is unassuming, but substantive brick hall with African artifacts in faux-window arches and sharp blue and red lights giving it a “I am too cool to point out my coolness” kind of place. The stage was set, and before long they marched in from the entryway on stage left; Two DJ dudes, a percussionist, a guest French jazz pianist, a Yankee on sax, a Britton trumpeter, a Saz prodigy (Saz is the long-necked string instrument with that haunting twang), and a tiny traditional folksinger with a mesmerizing voice that soon would penetrate our souls.

Without fanfare, the double DJs went to work, and with a few switch flips and a few knob turns, they paused, looked at each other, and unleashed a groovy house techno disco something or other backbeat on us all, immediately going into their synchronized torso-bobbing as if they were sharing the same pogo-stick.

Almost immediately, the percussionist picked an impossible eastern cross-rhythm on his tabla/and djembe drums while the Saz player began the captivating plick-placks of an old Turkish melody. Before long, all of us in the audience were riding the same pogo-stick, bobbing up and down while the Saz hummed our collective heartstring, and the drumbeat tickled our solarplexus. By the time the piano and the horn section moved into the audioscape of the hall, it was impossible to decipher what music was being played by whom, and moreover, it didn’t matter.

We were all awash and abob in the sea of musical umami. As the juxtaposing east-meet-west fantastic rhythms of the synths and the drums warmed up our core, the musicians took turns to do their solo frenzies. the vocalist’s beautiful and elongated notes; the rapidfire piano riffs; the uber-ambidextrous beating on the drums ; the slow howl of the saxophone, and the permeating, tiptoeing of the delectable Saz.

They cured me of my boorishness about Jazz-wigging and fusion, they slow-fast mesmerized me, fused the music into me and scooped me up in their trance-bob-groove-fest for hours on end, and showed me the way to Fusistan.

so much so that I am ready for that ginger in my cup of java....