Jazz in Istanbul Syllabus

Books I'm currently reading:

• Jazz Singer's Handbook: The Artistry and Mastery of Singing Jazz, by Michele Weir (with accompanying practice CD, which I'm also putting on my iPod for practice while driving, shoveling snow, etc.)

• I started practicing with this book/CD today and am finding it really helpful—she shows in clear and simple terms what can be done with melody, phrasing, inflection, and everything else in good vocal jazz expression so that it's no longer a magical intimidating mystery but something I can actually do myself, and already do to some degree.

• She also busted me on a weakness of mine:  "In performance (especially with ballads), it's easy to make the mistake of singing an overabundance of long, drawn-out phrases that direct too much attention to your voice and not enough to the message of the text. … Avoid getting caught up in listening to the loveliness of your own voice; keep the focus on making sure your message is clear to the listener."  I was rather abashed to recognize myself in this paragraph.

• Reclaiming Beauty for the Good of the World:  Muslim & Christian Creativity as Moral Power, by George Dardess & Peggy Rosenthal
  

• I've just started reading this, so I can't review it yet.  From the "Preface": "…a concept we felt was too little discussed or appreciated among Christians, and certainly not discussed at all when Christians spoke about Islam.  This was the concept of Beauty.  Beauty seemed to us to offer both Muslims and Christians an escape from their usually tense, dry, and often hopelessly stalemated interchanges on theology and politics.  Beauty elicits joy, an ingredient usually missing from such interchanges.  And beauty is central to both religions.  All the more is beauty central—and necessary—to their dialogue with each other." This is exactly where I believe in starting with interfaith communication.  We hope to bring beauty and joy to the people of Istanbul with our music.

• The Museum of Innocence, by Orhan Pamuk

• This is a book I've had to commit myself to in the belief that I need to read the whole thing to get the full impact.  Right now, about 2/3 of the way through, it's slow-going and often annoying in its obsessive detail and lack of progress, although I know that's the whole point of the story:  love is in the accumulation of tiny details.  So I'm hopeful that the cumulative effect will be powerful if I stick with it to the end.  It also provides an insider's view of Istanbul and Turkey in the 1970s and '80s.

•  The Crusades through Arab Eyes, by Amin Maalouf

• I haven't even started this yet, but it comes with great reviews from my son-in-law (who lent it to me), as well as many others.  I'm really looking forward to reading it, once I finish the Orhan Pamuk novel….

Books I've recently finished reading:

• Arabesk, and The Ottoman Cage, by Barbara Nadel—mystery novels set in Istanbul (fun mind-candy imbued with Istanbulia)

• The Bastard of Istanbul, by Elif Shafak—a novel that started out good but disappointed me by the end; it does provide a glimpse into Turkish-Armenian history and relations, but otherwise I didn't get very much out it

• What Jazz Is:  An Insider's Guide to Understanding and Listening to Jazz, by Jonny King—a really good beginner's guide to the history and intentions of jazz music

• The Jazz Ear:  Conversations over Music, by Ben Ratliff—a series of interviews with jazz musicians about other people's music (I turned down lots of page corners in this one to copy out quotes!  I'll share them in another post)

• Culture and Customs of Turkey, by Rafis Abazov—the English-as-a-second-language writing was a little cumbersome, but this is a good comprehensive survey of Turkish culture and customs (excepting the noticeable lack of discussion of homosexuality, which I guess tells you how it's handled in Turkey)

• Remaking Turkey:  Globalization, Alternative Modernities, and Democracies, edited by E. Fuat Keyman—a collection of essays on different aspects of modernization as experienced in Turkey (also a challenging read due to the clumsy English, but fascinating in its insiders' view of what it means to be "modern" today in Turkey)

[The last two books on the above list are finds from the Virtual Catalog that lets me request obscure items from obscure libraries throughout Massachusetts.  I love it!]