Burhan Ocal
Burhan Öçal, who plays a slew of instruments from the davul and darbuka to the tambourine and the piano, is exuberant and unaffected, like his music…
“My mom and dad used to go to Istanbul, to the Yüksekkaldirim, to buy film. They’d take me and my sisters along. We always got all dolled up. My sisters in starched, hound’s tooth hoop skirts and white pointy-toed shoes… ‘Cat-eye’ sunglasses. It took 14-16 hours by train from Kirklareli (in Thrace) to Sirkeci Station. My mother prepared provisions for the road that she brought along in metal containers like soldiers’ rations tins. Cookies made of rye or whole wheat flour. Delicious homemade cornbread spread with tomato puree…
” Burhan Öçal’s eyes light up as he describes his boyhood days down to the smallest detail. “I was actually one of the luckiest and happiest people in the world,” he says. Where the words end, the music begins. He drums a rhythm with his fingers, his feet. He’s so happy, so unaffected, so bursting with energy it’s impossible not to be caught up in it as he speaks.
Burhan Öçal gets pleasure out of life. He takes pleasure in everything, and because he does he also gives pleasure to his listeners.
You say your parents were a major influence on your decision to go into music.
My dad had a movie theater in Kirklareli. It was 1925-1930. He also played the drums then, and in 1932 he had a jazz quartet. We listened to the jazz classics out there in the boondocks. Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller. And then there was film music, and Turkish Art Music. The oud, the qanun, the keman, you name it, I was smitten with it. I listened to 45s and old 33 1/3 rpms and copied down what I heard. For example, we used to play old Ottoman songs from the Balkans at home. My mom was devoutly religious, and I learned religious music from her. Gypsy musicians used to play at my father’s movie theater. I always wanted to play with them and like them.
What took you to Switzerland at the age of 25?
I wasn’t planning to go to Switzerland. I had my sights set on New York and Hollywood.
But my blood brother Erol was in Switzerland. He invited me so I went, and I ended up staying there.
How did the concerts get under way?
Actually it was series of coincidences. I’m hyperactive, I can’t sit still. My mother thought I was a student at the university. In fact I was hanging out, going everywhere I could get into. I started to meet jazz musicians and in 1980 I formed my first jazz trio. We called the music we made ethnic jazz. Nobody was playing that kind of music at the time.
How did the Istanbul Oriental Ensemble come about?
It was an offshoot. I formed Oriental 15 years ago. In 1995 and 1997 I won the German Recording Critics award. I made a record in France and everybody was floored. Ethnic was a new concept in those days. I’ve been making ethnic music for 30 years. Let me play you one of my albums from those days; in terms of both ideas and melodic arrangements they’re far superior to today’s recordings.
They call you ‘lord of the instruments’. You play string instruments as well as percussion in your concerts.
I play every type of instrument, because my technique is very versatile. I don’t say that I play well, but I was born with rhythm. I do on the darbuka (a drum made by stretching a leather membrane over a clay cylinder) what a drummer does on the drum. My way of playing drums is different. It’s very rare in this world; the right and left hands playing different rhythms, and the feet something else. Now that’s what I call polyrhythm. It doesn’t just mean dividing up the beat into four. I even played the trombone for a while. I learned it during my stint in the Turkish army. As for the piano, I use it when I compose for chamber ensembles or symphony orchestras.
You’re said to have the fastest fingers in the world. How many times per second can you hit the drum?
Thirteen to fifteen times. I play continuously and rhythmically. I never use my fist, I just flick my fingers.
I learned it from Kung Fu technique. There are no calluses on my hands. Calluses result from using wrong technique. I strike like lightning. But I’m not a darbuka player. There are a lot of people who play the darbuka better than me. I don’t play the darbuka like a darbuka either. But I can’t get this across to people. You say that for you ‘ethno-electronic’ is the music of the future. Why? What I said was ‘world music’, not ethno-electronic. I invented ethno-electronic 20 years ago with Pete Namlook in Germany. Later I made the ‘Sultans’ series with him. My music is organic. It’s acoustic. There’s direct contact. You know the way the earth takes away your negative energy? Like that. Come into contact with my music, it’ll do you good. Even if it’s a little amateur, it’s original. That’s what counts in today’s world. I’ve finally returned to my roots I regard my inner values a little differently now. A person becomes more patriotic when he lives abroad. I’m more careful, more conservative. My roots are here, they’re Turkish. I’m inspired by Turkish music when I compose, but I wouldn’t touch Turkish music. I respect it. I wouldn’t violate the original thing. My compositions are something else of course.
I really like the group I play with on my new album, ‘New Dream’, too. We’re accompanied by a 19-man string orchestra.
Why have you gone over to Turkish Art Music in your new album?
Actually I have two examples of Turkish Art Music on this album. The rest are my own compositions. I did polyphony. I wanted to bring a new approach to Turkish music, to show that it can be rejuvenated. The name of the project was actually ‘The New Dream of the Orient’ but we shortened it. We used Smadj’s electronic equipment and brought in Emel Sayin as guest artist.
What projects are in the works these days?
I’m doing a project with the Zurich Symphony Orchestra. I’ve composed a big symphony. We’re going to perform it in September. The Sultans series that I did with Pete Namlook is continuing. I’m getting Sultan Murad ready right now. We’re working on another Trakya All Stars project.
There’ll be more musicians of course. We’re going to make wedding music this time. I’m going to have a couple of compositions, but I’m especially going to collect the lively traditional songs that were played at old weddings. No other place in the world has the musical richness of the Balkans. I’m going to revive some of the pieces and adapt them for modern tastes. There are another seven or eight projects in the works of course.
You say that you set out from Kırklareli with two dreams. One was to play jazz in New York, the other to become a Hollywood movie star. You’ve realized one; as for the other, maybe you didn’t become a movie star in Hollywood, but you have in Turkey. Have you got any new offers? I’ve got a lot of offers. Abdullah Oğuz wants to make a film of my life. It’ll be an odyssey starting from a small town in Thrace and going all the way around the world, from Japan to Chile in South America.
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