JAZZ CARIBE: Fahir Atakoglu - "Live at Umbria Jazz"

Fahir Atakoğlu

"Live at Umbria Jazz"

Featuring Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez & Alain Caron
Release Date: January 19, 2016

New 2016 Release Integrates Cuban Rhythms & Middle Eastern Melodies
World Tour Planned

Fahir Atakoğlu releases his latest CD "Live at Umbria Jazz" (Far & Here label) on January 19, which is the 17th album in Fahir's vast catalogue of music with plans for a 2016 world tour underway. Atakoğlu has worked to blend his own native music with sounds from the wider world, incorporating Cuban rhythms, Middle Eastern melodies, and improvisation as perfected by American jazz artists. Fahir's three previous U.S. jazz releases and his CDs have made it to #1 (three times) on the JazzWeek World Music Chart as well as charting high on the JazzWeek Jazz Chart.

Fahir's Turkish melodies smoothly blend into the context of a precision-balanced, high-powered jazz trio consisting of Fahir on piano, the great Cuban drummer Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez and renown Canadian bass player Alain Caron. In the CD liner notes, Grammy® Award winner for album notes, Neil Tesser writes "... True to his roots, Atakoğlu has used his birthright as inspiration for many of these songs. Amongst the wide palate, 'Gypsy In Me' sounds a bit like what might have resulted had Thelonious Monk visited the Topkapi Palace... The moody, introspective 'Connection' has a Turkish foundation, expressed in its introductory measures; but the main melody hews closer to a modern American standard, and its rhythms range from a bossa-nova tinge to a touch of tango. 'Connection' forges a bridge between east and west. More than anything else, that connection defines his music."