Assolist

These sentimental tracks come from the golden, pre-Arabesk, age of Turkish gazinos, venues where mixed crowds would come, eat and drink rakı while listening to live entertainment. The songs are good in and of themselves – a couple of them actually still bear listening to today – but one has to ask, why? Why now? What kind of nostalgic trip is this? The songs, all coming from a more innocent era before the political upheavals of the late 60s and 70s, belong to the Türkitalic sanat müziği (Turkish art music) genre, of which Zeki Müren, a kind of glitzy, Liberace-style crooner, was its best proponent. Back in the day, owing to moralistic strictures, these kinds of songs were performed by mainly non-Muslim, Greek singers in Istanbul and elsewhere. For instance ‘Beyoğlu’nda Gezersin’ (She Goes for a Stroll in Beyoglu), the concluding song, features taut darbuka and kanun playing and has something of a Gypsy air to it. Another old chestnut is ‘Üsküdar’a Gider Iken’, which is claimed by well nigh every country of the Balkans. We know that opera singer Efruze has been pushing to get international audiences interested in this music, taking a tip perhaps from the Anatolian pop revival.