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Turkish tenor man Ersahin, who has been leading Saturday
brunch sessions at Sweet Basil for three-and-a-half years, debuts impressively
on this album. He solos in a declarative, extrapolative manner, combining
hard bop (Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter) and non-freak-out free jazz (Ornette
Coleman, Dewey Redman). Trumpeter Eddie Henderson, pianist Jon Davis,
bassist Doug Weiss, and drummer Kenny Wollesen perform solidly in his
corner.
Owen Cordle, Jazz Times, May 1999
Sounding well beyond his years, the Stockholm-born, Turkish-raised
tenor saxophonist presents a balanced mix of post-bop swingers with ballads
and a few fun, funky numbers on Our Song. Also look for Home,
a very fine trio date with Our Song bandmates drummer Kenny Wolleson
and bassist Larry Grenadier. Both albums sport only Ersahin compositions,
songs that have been honed through years of steady gigging in New York
(including a regular stint at Sweet Basil).
In addition to Grenadier (who plays on just one of the
10 tracks here) and Wolleson, there's keyboardist Jon Davis, bassist Doug
Weiss and drummer Jeff Williams (on "She"). Most importantly,
there's the significant presence of veteran trumpeter Eddie Henderson,
whose sound lends weight to the ensemble passages and depth with his solos.
Ersahin's production has an odd, monaural sound to it.
His playing is reminiscent of at times John Coltrane, Joe Henderson and
Wayne Shorter, while trumpeter Henderson time and again conjures up the
sound of Miles Davis (check out his trills on "The Chief", a
tune dedicated to tenorist Clifford Jordan and at times recalling certain
lines, if not attitude, from Eddie Harris' "Freedom Jazz Dace").
A bonus: Jon Davis' use of Fender Rhodes on the funky stuff as well as
the recommended coda to the album-closer "Time Out", which harkens
back to the days when Miles used to add his "Theme" to the end
of a live set.
There isn't a dud in the dough. And as long as Ersahin
- who also has serious inclinations toward hip-hop, reggae and all-around
world musics - continues to surround himself with top-flight players,
the songs he writes and performs are bound to stir more than just a little
interest.
Down Beat, March 1999, by John Ephland
Ilhan
Ersahin is a Turkish, New York-based saxophonist with a full and pliable
tone; occasionally he recalls Joe Henderson. This is actually his debut
as a leader, as it was recorded before his well-received Home.
On this one he seems to test the possibilities of several different approaches.
On "Uzun" he essays a hypnotic, slow-paced Turkish folk song
with conviction, tending toward Coltrane in his tenor orientalism, as
Grenadier sets up a Garrisonish foundation for him. Otherwise Ersahin
tends toward more conventional gestures, seeming unwilling (but not unable)
to cut loose on "Our Song;" except for a few brief flurries,
he strolls through the piece with a certain detachment, and lets Eddie
Henderson raise the sparks. On "She Said" and "Piece/Variations
on a Thought," however, he and Henderson do slip in a bit of dervish
(and spirited give-and-take). The trumpeter not only puts on a Harmon
mute, but a full Miles suit, on "X" (and elsewhere). On "X,"
Ersahin follows his solo with a chromatic run much like Trane following
Miles on "Blue in Green" or "Freddie Freeloader,"
but Ersahin is much more relaxed and less peripatetic than Coltrane. There
are other echoes: on "She," which is indebted to Tadd Dameron's
"On a Misty Night," Ersahin plays with fervent romanticism,
while Jon Davis mimes Bill Evans gestures. The funky "Chief,"
dedicated to Clifford Jordan, could have come from one of those glorious
Jordan/Lee Morgan collaborations. "Time Out," with its stoptime,
harmonically daring head, sounds more like Morgan with Wayne Shorter.
But to identify influences isnot to peg Ersahin as a
more copyist or imitator. He is clearly developing his own voice - out
of strong elements of the "mainstream" tradition - and is a
musician to be watched.
Robert Spencer
Cadence, The Review of Jazz & Blues: Creative
Improvised Music, March 1999
Sometimes you have to travel a long way to meet your
neighbors. I had to go to Istanbul to meet Ilhan Ersahin, who lives about
a five-minute walk away from my apartment in New York's East Village.
In the fall of 1997, I had the privilege of traveling
from New York to Turkey to cover Istanbul's Akbank Jazz Festival, a fairly
adventurous gathering of jazz musicians from around the world. Every night
after the main concerts, everybody would gather in a snug little nightclub
for jam sessions, nightly encounters that frequently mixed the big name
American stars with some hot-to-trot local players.
Leading the jam sessions was a splendidly big-toned,
hard-swinging young saxophonist named Ilhan Ersahin. I, of course, knew
the name. Ilhan Ersahin has had one of New York's steadiest gigs: three-and-a-half
years of playing Saturday brunch at Sweet Basil, one of New York's premiere
jazz rooms. Now if a Saturday brunch gig doesn't sound like much, consider
that for all that time (and right up until this death) the Sunday brunch
there was led by Doc Cheatham.
Ilhan brought the two New York aces who play with him
at the club, bassist Doug Weiss and drummer Kenny Wollesen, and the three
of them set a standard of late-night excellence that drew the stars to
the bandstand like flies to a Mars bar. I mean, when James Carter, Craig
Harris and Jerome Harris join your trio and then decide to play some Charlie
Parker tunes at supersonic tempo, you either fly or you thud to the ground
like a stone. Ilhan and company not only flew, but Ilhan had no trouble
keeping pace with the take-no-prisoners James Carter. It was highlight
of a festival studded with highlights.
"Our Song" is the debut recording of Ilhan
Ersahin (it predates his other Golden Horn release, "Home")
and, in a world of half-baked jazz album debuts, it presents a player,
and composer, fully baked.
"I'm really aiming to try to find my own voice with
my compositions and the people I choose to record with,"says Ilhan.
"These days there's so much out that is the same or redundant. Musicians
have to have some kind of life or background, you can't just grow up in
some little town and go to Berklee and become a musician. You have to
have something to say when you get out there, you have to tell a story,
an interesting story."
"Our Song" tells 10 interesting stories. Most
are in the language of hard-bop or a more Ornette Colemanish post-bop
but none are throwbacks, everything is fresh and memorable, from the opening
notes of the title track to the uptempo spin of the closing "Time
Out." I love the big rich ballads, like "X" and "She,"
and I love the funky attitude of "She Said" and "The Chief,"
which fall into a soulful groove that would make Cannonball Adderley or
Horace Silver proud (in fact "The Chief" is written for Clifford
Jordan, another big-toned tenor saxophonist with a ton of soul).
Everybody plays beautifully here, particularly Eddie
Henderson, a veteran player who seems to be getting better with each passing
year. Ilhan met him when he used to sit in at Henderson's jam sessions
at New York's Visiones, and the trumpeter liked what he heard: they've
worked together in Europe and the Caribbean and it's a magical musical
marriage. Weiss and Wollesen live up to their promise at those jam sessions,
and Jon Davis provides extra-tasty keyboard work. This band sounds like...well,
it sounds like a band. It also sounds like itself, which is saying a mouthful.
"I am definitely a jazz musician, but if you see
my record collection, I listen to everything," says Ilhan Ersahin.
'I listen to the new things that come from England, I listen a lot to
old soul and reggae, I listen to all kinds of music and I always have.
All of my music represents more of a worldly side than just bebop. I have
a total respect for bebop, but you have to find a way to put your own
personality to it. You can't just redo what's been done."
Ilhan Ersahin came to New York after a short stint at
the Berklee College of Music. John Scofield once told me that the best
musicians don't graduate from Berklee, they stay there until they're ready
to try New York. It took Ilhan three semesters. He thought he'd stay a
year, but that was 10 years ago, and now, he says, New York is home.
"I feel like this is my home, more than Turkey,"
he says. "It's a struggle, but I feel these ten years have been going
better and better all the time. Which is a positive feeling. And I feel
like there are a lot of people who don't know me yet."
One who does know him is the master of improvised conducting,
Butch Morris, who has been featuring Ilhan in many of his recent conductions.
Another Akbank highlight was when Morris took the stand, with a Cuban
cigar substituting for a baton, and organized a small conduction featuring
Ilhan and his band and a couple of other Turkish horn players.
Calling this album "Our Song" is no accident:
Ilhan Ersahin is determined, in a world of cookie-cutter young musicians,
to play his own song, to tell his own story. He's got a lot of tricks
up his sleeve, many more of which can be heard on the exceptional trio-only
album "Home." He also leads a group called Wax Poetic, which
quite successfully blends jazz with ambient sounds, electronica, hip-hop
and other modern notions.
Ilhan Ersahin is going to be heard from quite a lot in
the future, of this I am certain. Because along with his abilities as
a player and composer is an awareness of what is he does and what it us
he should be doing. "It's about creating an atmosphere when you play
and making the room enjoy the whole evening," he says. "And
that's what's missing in jazz these days, a lot of young guys just play
a lot of the right things, but it's rarely that you go and hear a magical
evening."
I couldn't agree more. And "Our Song" is filled
with magical evenings.
Lee Jeske
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