Review: Kayhan Kalhor and Erdal Erzincan at Octagon Theatre
Kayhan Kalhor and Erdal Erzincan at Octagon Theatre
Friday, July 19, 2024
Throughout the world, in every generation, there are musical visionaries who emerge to reshape the musical landscape of their culture or tradition. Whether it be Woody Guthrie, Oum Kalthoum, Ravi Shankar or John Coltrane, fountainhead figures emerge who redefine a new generation. Arguably, Iranian kamancheh (spiked fiddle) master Kayhan Kalhor and his Turkish baglama (long/narrow-necked lute) playing counterpart, Erdal Erzincan, are two such figures in their respective Persian and Turkish traditions.
On their debut Australian tour, these two consummate musicians from central eastern cultures that have cross-pollinated for centuries showed such a simpatico connection that it was clear that their intermittent 20-year collaboration of touring and recording together would result in something truly profound. And so it transpired!
Tehran-born Kurdish multi-instrumentalist Kayhan Kalhor’s career has been championed by the renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma and has a long association with east-meets-west collaborations, most significantly the ongoing Silk Road Ensemble that Ma himself directs. He has also recorded with the Kronos Quartet and the New York-based Brooklyn Rider string quartet. In Iran, he has performed and recorded with many preeminent artists, including its greatest modern-day singers, Shahram Nazeri and Mohammad Reza Shajarian, as well as his contemporary, Iran’s leading setar and tar maestro, Hossein Alizadeh.
Kayhan Kalhor and Erdal Erzincan
Erdal Erzincan was born in Erzurum, Turkey, where he studied while also touring with baglama legend Arif Sag. He has also worked with orchestras outside of Turkey, such as the Koln Philharmonic and the Ambassador Symphony Orchestra in Vienna. His baglama playing is distinctive in his pursuit of innovative fingerpicking techniques, in addition to the more traditional use of a plectrum. Famed at home, he has recorded more than two dozen albums in Turkey and Europe.
Seated cross-legged on the floor at UWA’s Octagon theatre amidst only the glow of hundreds of candles adorning the stage, Kayhan Kalhor and Erdal Erzincan played continuously throughout the 90-minute concert without an intermission or a word spoken—extraordinary in itself, given the intensity of the music being played. The intimacy of this setting was not lost on a highly attentive audience (largely from Perth’s Persian diaspora) drawn into the closest of intimate listening experiences.
Kayhan Kalhor and Erdal Erzincan
Kalhor’s exquisite tone and control of his variable-tensioned horsehair bow (adjusted by positions of the hand sweeping in an arc) and his four-string upright kamancheh (fiddle) could evince a whisper to a plaintive cry, as pianissimo passages were inevitably followed by exuberant, highly rhythmic, and melodic flights by both players. Elegantly flowing legato passages transitioned to impossibly fleet pizzicato lines with Erzincan’s famed şelpe technique of 'tapping' the melody with two hands on his baglama’s narrow fretboard (akin to Stanley Jordan’s jazz guitar fretboard excursions in the 1980s), which was mirrored by Kalhor’s fleetly nimble plucking, strumming, and percussing on the body of the kamancheh.
These sudden shifts of tempo and texture were as unexpected as they were exhilarating! Watching Kalhor’s fingers in full flight is truly a marvel of human engineering! One discernible difference between these two players is the more openly-flowing improvisatory style of Kalhor in contrast to Erzincan’s orientation towards more clear-cut folk-based melodies, whether in 4/4, 7/8, or, as in the final climax, a thrilling combination of 7/8 and 10/8 rhythms. But the beauty of this duo is how these melodic and improvisatory processes dovetail in one continuous yet episodic journey where neither thematic beginnings nor endings seem prescribed. And what a journey…
Kayhan Kalhor and Erdal Erzincan
Within the Persian classical ‘radif’ and ‘dastgah’ modal systems, improvisation plays a very important role, as it does in the parallel Turkish ‘makam’ system. Both traditions in this sense have parallels to the use of scales and modes in jazz, though in jazz, improvisation typically takes place over chord changes. But increasingly (and this is where both Kalhor and Erzincan are innovators), they are taking the threshold of their respective traditions closer to the improvisational boundaries of jazz. And to this end, it is no coincidence that in recent years their two recordings together have found a comfortable fit on the German ECM label, Europe’s “leading jazz label for more than four decades.”
It’s in the blurring of these boundaries and the technical innovations of players like Kayhan Kalhor and Erdal Erzincan that the future directions of so-called ‘world music’ and indeed jazz will be shaped. Worlds away they may be, but inevitably, they are on a merging lane.
MARK CAIN
