1973 Mustafa Özkent Ve Orkestrastra “Gençlik İle Elele” on Evren

Well, here’s another title I recently struck from the Master List and has languored on there basically forever. Until now. While it wasn’t a straight trade, I did use $ I made selling other records to pay for it. There should be a term for that: “Wax-Cash Conversion?” “Vinyl Proceed Upgrade”? In any case, this record is THE SHIT, and it’s downright lovely to be able to finally spin the OG. I had the 2005 RE and, to be honest, the thin sound annoyed me, so I sold it and listened to a digital copy, but not too often because this is definitely a record to savor. It’s also an object lesson in patience, because I had chances to way overpay for subpar copies and resisted over the years, finally finding just the right combo of cool seller, clean wax, and human asking price. In fact, the dude was that rarest and most wonderful thing: someone with an extra copy finally deciding to let it go to a good home instead of bleeding maximum cash out of it, AS WELL as a strict and honest grader. Because “Gençlik” arrived, both vinyl and wax, in even better condition that I’d been led to believe. The vinyl does have a few worrying marks, but no sweat because it plays perfectly with no noise or crackle at all. All hail the Ottoman Empire!

​Here’s what you need to know about this record if you’re not familiar: Nothing. Just spin the bastard, sit back, and soak in the insane Turkish jazz-funk psych-hipster, groove, bass-heavy jazz-rock, utterly hip, way before its time mod Constantinople Soul goodness. I never thought I would own this badboy, and I have to say it’s awesome. This music RULES and Mustafa Özkent is a hero/genius, Merih Dumlu is a bass wizard, Cahit Oben is a guitar prophet, and Ümit Aksu is the Istanbul Brother Jack McDuff. Oh YEA.