Written by Severo Avila, Rome News-Tribune features editor, published 8/2/09
As his taxi speeds through the swift streets of Istanbul, he has just enough time to take note of the fragrant spices climbing through the warm breeze from the market. Mitchell Maddox is on a mission.
For two weeks in June, Maddox experienced the cultural and financial center of Turkey, a city of 12 million residents, known for its Byzantine history, magnificent mosque, exotic traditions and colorful markets. But Maddox was there for the music. The Darlington English teacher was on assignment for National Geographic Music. He was there to blog about the rich music scene in one the of the most exotic cities in the world.
“I was already planning to be in Europe for the summer working on an English masters (Bread Loaf School of English, Lincoln College, Oxford campus),” Maddox says. “I knew I would have some time to travel beforehand. I used to write album reviews and do interviews for Performer magazine and I decided to do something musically.”
A chance meeting between Maddox and a staff member at National Geographic Television led to an introduction to someone at National Geographic Music.
“We exchanged cards, and I e-mailed him in March with my proposal,” says Maddox, who has a degree in music from the University of Virginia. “The proposal was to write about the local music scene in a specific place or series of places in Europe.”
He got the green light for the project and traveled to Istanbul, staying in both the old city of Sultanahmet, home of the Topkapi Palace and the famous Blue Mosque, as well as in Cihangir, a “gentrifying, hop neighborhood” as Maddox calls it. Maddox would write a blog — a series of short articles to be published online each day — chronicling his stay in the Turkish megacity and try to capture the essence of the local music scene for readers all over the world.
“I interviewed musicians, venue managers/owners, record labels and studio engineers,” Maddox said. “I also went to various concerts linkling Western European art music, international music and of course traditional and contemporary Turkish music: Turku, fasil, Balkan gypsy music, Anatolian folk music and contemporary rock and alternative music.”
In his blog entries, which will be published on Nat Geo Music, a branch of www.nationalgeographic.com, Maddox describes not only the musical pulse of Istanbul, but his experiences in the city. His descriptions of the sights, smells and sounds of the ancient metropolis add flavor to his entries. Even a run-in with his Turkish doppelganger — deep tan notwithstanding — is unusual enough to mention.
But he’s here for the music. And words seem too flimsy to describe the richness and robust textures of the traditional and contemporary music scene in Istanbul.
“Traditional acoustic instruments, occasionally amplified. Lots of sliding vocalisms — generically: that Middle-Eastern or South Asian singing sound that we associate with Arab and Indian music,” Maddox says. “Virtuosic performances on instruments that are tuned differently to ours, so that the melodies have a different melodic architecture. Solos on those instruments. Rock/alternative/dance scene featured more Western sounds and instruments (like a rock ensemble). And often those songs are sung in English. There is an effort by many contemporary musicians to go for a sort of Western aesthetic, although they rarely fully escape their Turkish roots entirely. The best music I heard combined the two — both kinds of instruments, both kinds of musical scales.”
The following is a humorous account Maddox wrote after trying to get to a concert to see Turking Hip Hop empresario, Ceza (pronounced Jezza). Titled “Istanbul to Istanbul — The Ouroboros Taxi” the diary-entry format pulls readers into a world few outsiders get to experience:
“… When we return to the road, my friend takes a break from thinking about the trip to fiddle with the AM radio. He scans. Nothing. Scans again. Nothing. Scans once more. Something, but not to his liking. So he stops again to ask directions. This time he stops on the side of the road under a tree and begins flagging down cars. After several dozen drive by and honk at him for standing in the middle of the highway, another taxi stops. There’s a family of three in it. There are some conversations, and the father of the family gets out and walks over to my window. 'Um, yes. You are here to concert?' Yes, I reply. 'Ok, this taxi driver does not good knowing here, so you can come with the other taxi man.' What the hell. 'Ok.' So I pay my driver about $70 and leave him still shrugging his shoulders and a look like, 'Hey, at least we tried.' And that’s not the first time a taxi driver has given me this look in Turkey. He seems relieved and maybe a little remorseful, but I think I have just paid him two days’ wages, so there are no hard feelings.
"In the new taxi, we go to Istanbul’s Asian-side airport, Sabiyah, to drop off my new guide and his friends, and apparently I insult his dignity by trying to pay for the modest fare. After a sincere apology, he wished me good luck and picks up his daughter from the seat. My new driver, who, oddly, could be my Turkish doppelganger with a deeper tan, resets the meter and says several things to me in Turkish. Now I have a new friend with a car, and this time he says what I take to mean that he knows exactly where he’s going. He speaks even less English than my first friend, whose vocabulary included “no problem, traffic, yes, no, and cigaretta?” but the father who de-taxied at the airport assured me that my new friend with a car knew exactly where to go. He also understood that I was in a hurry, but that’s not necessarily a good thing for a Turkish taxi driver to know.
"We screeched out of the terminal to the odd rhythms of Turkish pop, and once again I felt optimistic and excited that I was going to hear some Turkish rap. I was only an hour and fifteen minutes late, and I figured I could still catch a good bit of the show….”
Editor’s note: Maddox finally found the venue after a comedic yet scenic journey through Istanbul. But the concert had been canceled.
Maddox’s blog entries will be available on Nat Geo Music in the coming weeks. And while he’s currently working on a master’s degree in the more cool, drizzly England, he’ll always have two weeks in Istanbul.
