22.09.2021
Text: İlayda Güler
Guitar player/composer/arranger Cenk Erdoğan will be playing at Zorlu PSM, Turkcell Platinum Sahnesi on October 10 as part of 31st Akbank Jazz Festival. Trio consisting of Baran Say on contrabass and Ekin Cengizkan on drums will be guested by ney player Muhammed Ceylan and kemancha player Emre Erdal. On the occasion of this special evening, here’s a sum up of some details from Cenk Erdoğan’s musical journey in 10 entries.
Arıyorum Hâlâ
Cenk Erdoğan’s latest solo album. All of the songs in the album (except for one) was composed during the pandemic. It is a collection that speaks to the search for finding one’s place in life and was inspired by the confusion of going into the quarantine after an intense tour, interpretations of the relationship between human and nature and the puzzle piece that we see on the album cover, which Cenk Erdoğan attach a special importance to.
Ceylan Ertem
Besides sharing the same stage and arranging songs together, Cenk Erdoğan has been nurturing his friendship with Ceylan Ertem for years. Like Sezen Aksu and Onno Tunç, Ceylan and Cenk are a signature duo from today that has recorded many albums and performed hundreds of shows. Some of the other friends who have been frequent visitors at Erdoğan’s studio, which has produced almost 40 albums are: Nükhet Duru, Jehan Barbur, Şenay Lambaoğlu, Jülide Özçelik, Selen Gülün, Nicholas Meier, Bilal Karaman.
Work Style
The musician who mentions his work style is defined by writing songs, continues to practice and produce through moving between technics and harmony. He arranges his albums according to his live performances and although he builds them on already written material, he does not avoid leaving some room occasionally. Cenk Erdoğan cares about listening, getting curious and tolerating.
Fermata
Cenk Erdoğan explains this musical term which named his 2018 solo release like this: “Resting, breathing on the arrival note, and then starting altogether.” This concept translates to uniting for Cenk Erdoğan. He dreams that the child on the album cover is himself and he brings together people under the thing he casts.
Grammy
Cenk Erdoğan was a guest at Jim “Kimi” West’s recording named More Gitar Stories and this recording won The Grammy Award in 2020 in the Best New Age Album category. He shared his happiness by promising to win the trophy with his own material next time.
International Guitar Night
Cenk Erdoğan was one of the four guitarists chosen for the 19th and 20th editions of International Guitar Night organization, which brings together 4 guitarists from different parts of the world in an intercontinental tour that covers Europe, US as well as India. He played almost 90 shows in various cities.
Lahza
This is the project that took off after Cenk Erdoğan and Sweden-based drummer Mehmet İkiz, whom he’d just met, relistened to an on-stage improvisation session they did and discovered the impressive musical bond they share. Lahza means the time passes in the twinkling of an eye. The project has released two refreshing albums that intertwine the unhurried attitude of the Northern jazz with burner sounds of his hometown. Lahza was also on Akbank Jazz Festival’s 30th anniversary celebration album Dün, Bugün, Yarın with their original composition “Orsa”.
Fretless guitar
This is the instrument Cenk Erdoğan’s career is based on. In his childhood, he was inspired by a sound his neighborhood friend made and he started tampering with his father’s broken guitar. His classical guitar adventure continued afterwards as he was carried away by the discovery of fretless guitar in his college years.
Multi-genre
During the Kalamış College years, as he was working on classical guitar tunes, Cenk Erdoğan mentions that he was playing Iron Maiden and Pearl Jam songs with the school orchestra and that on his way back home he was listening to the flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucía, who still remains to be one of his major sources of inspiration. He took the fretless guitar in his hand and developed a passion for Turkish music during the years he studied jazz at Istanbul Bilgi University. He believes that through these years that he let the music sway freely in him, he was able to create a language of his own.
Virtuosity
Cenk Erdoğan believes that the real skill of the virtuosos he loves like Paco de Lucía, Erkan Oğur and Keith Jarrett is the ability to trail people along behind them. In this sense, as a virtuoso, he values the act of serving music through means of a common attitude by inspiring others who want to sound like him.