Jazz a la Turk

STATE OF THE ARTS

A profile o f Arman R a t ip who took the London j a z z scene by storm in the Seventies

with his unusual combination o f ja z z , oriental rhythms a n d melodies. By Jane Kingston

JAZZ À LA TURK

T

Turkish Cypriot”. In those days, Arman Ratip was in the front ranks of

the fervent British jazz scene. “Hot as hell”, one reviewer called him, “blistering”. “A sense of dignity and elegance”, wrote another. Back then, when not playing virtuoso, Ratip was playing Renaissance man: studying law, practising journalism, hustling backgammon, even writing novels in his spare time.

Only the locale has changed, although experience has led Ratip to concentrate his artistic energies more

than in his maverick years. He is based now in his native Lefko§a in Northern Cyprus. Probably his small country’s greatest artistic natural resource, Ratip still remains devoted to his early musical aspirations.

“Turkish jazz” comes as a heady surprise to most European and American listeners. The sound is at once wholly familiar and completely unexpected — jazz allied to obviously oriental melodies and rhythms.

Ratip virtually invented Turkish jazz and made it popular on the international jazz scene. An outgoing man of swiftly changeable moods — he can be profoundly happy one moment and in the direst melancholy the next,

or as abruptly decide he must travel, immediately, many miles for the pleasure of a certain dish — his music too, can change directions without warning. It reflects his energy, impulsiveness and effervescence.

His first record, Introducing the

Arman Ratip Trio (1971, Columbia

SCZ6432), made in London with a Turkish bassist and drummer, earned reviews that would be the envy of any 29-year-old musician. “A very powerful jazz set," wrote one prominent critic. “Ratip is Peterson-like in his hard- shouldering attack and has Oscar’s ability to play fast multi-note runs that never stop swinging. He has some of Brubeck’s usage of chords. But his energy output is so vast as to make Brubeck puny by comparison.”

Where did this original artist come from? Where is he going? I put them to Ratip himself recently — a soft-spoken man who appears by turns worried or gently amused, or else enigmatic behind wraparound shades.

“I started lessons at five with my mother, a piano teacher,” he recalled. “From early on I had difficulty reading music. Probably I was too interested in playing the piano. Music was an adventure. When my mother started playing, I’d sit beside her and listen. She used to play Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin. The virtuoso aspect of the music, seemed unbelievable. These composers all wrote theme-and- variations, which to me are a form of improvisation.

“I kept up my regular piano studies. But I was playing the weekly exercises by ear and from memory, and more than once the examiners knew I wasn’t reading the music. I’d started composing at 10 and I was developing my own technique, learning the music I loved by ear from records. When I left Cyprus at 17 and went to London to

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