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The Electric Oud Man Speaks And You Listen…

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Mehmet Ali Sanlikol

Label: Dunya Records
Released: 2026
Views: 137

Tracks

Pickin' A Shuffle Alla Turca; Another Dream In Nihavend; Talk About A Turkish Blues; A Poignant Truth; No Big Deal.

Personnel

Album Description

Turkish-American composer, multi-instrumentalist, and New England Conservatory full-time faculty member Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol announces "THE ELECTRIC OUD MAN SPEAKS and you listen...", a five-track project centered on his custom semi-hollow electric oud — an instrument he first envisioned more than 20 years ago and only recently had the means to realize. The album features a close, long-standing working group: Mark Tipton (trumpet, flugelhorn), Edmar Colón (saxophone), James Heazlewood-Dale (bass), and George Lernis (drums).

The project originates in a problem Sanlıkol encountered early: the acoustic oud could not properly function inside a modern jazz rhythm section. In his initial attempts, it fed back, disappeared in volume, and collapsed the moment the drums asserted themselves. If the oud was to hold its own in a contemporary ensemble, it needed a transformation similar to what the guitar underwent in the early 20th century — magnetic pickups, steel strings, and a redesigned body capable of handling volume and dynamic range.

Working with an American guitarist and oud enthusiast, Mac Ritchey, Sanlıkol developed a semi-hollow electric oud that travels well, stays in tune, and can withstand the physicality of a jazz-fusion band.

That invention is an extension of a lifelong musical arc. Raised in Turkey by a classical pianist mother, Sanlıkol grew up immersed in Beethoven, Mozart, and Chopin before discovering Chick Corea, Weather Report, and — most fatefully — Charlie Parker, whose melodic and rhythmic language he studied intensively. As an adult, he seriouslystudied the Turkish makam and Ottoman traditions embedded only in his cultural memory up until then, eventually integrating all these elements into his compositional and improvisational practice. In his teaching and scholarship, he frames musical styles as languages — systems that must be learned from the inside rather than superficially borrowed.

The electric oud gives him the means to apply that philosophy directly. He moves through Turkish modal practice, American blues vocabulary, ECM-like atmosphere, and groove-forward writing without shifting posture between them. Each track rests in its own makam, rhythmic feel, and internal logic.

“Pickin’ a Shuffle Alla Turca” opens the album with a bluegrass-style picking pattern Sanlıkol discovered on the oud, paired with a Turkish melody that evokes American riff traditions while remaining fully modal. “Another Dream in Nihavend” expands on an earlier idea, beginning in an understated, atmospheric space before breaking into distorted electric-oud improvisation. “Talk About a Turkish Blues” takes a melody that arrived in the moment between sleep and waking and places it in a blues structure extended to a 13-bar form.

“A Poignant Truth” is a solo piece recorded at home on fretless electric oud — layered arpeggios, doubled lines, vocoder, and contrasting distorted timbres. The album ends with “No Big Deal,” a straight-ahead funk tune in the lineage of Herbie Hancock, anchored by its modal foundation and delivered with clarity and ease.

The ensemble reflects years of shared work. Lernis and Heazlewood-Dale form the center of Sanlıkol’s small-group projects, and both — along with Tipton — studied his comparative improvisation, tuning systems, and microtonal concepts at New England Conservatory and Berklee College of Music. Their grounding in makam and cross-modal improvisation allows the group to move naturally through shifting rhythmic and modal frameworks. The quintet toured five festivals across Turkey and Cyprus last summer, shaping the rapport documented here. Colón, though not a former student, adapted quickly to the structural and modal demands.

While the album rests on decades of research, cultural history, and instrument design, it lands with immediacy. Listeners from jazz, blues, Anatolian Turkish psychedelic, and alternative global scenes have responded strongly to the sound of the electric oud and its unforced synthesis of traditions. For Sanlıkol, the project distills the musical languageshe has lived with since childhood. “This is my sound. This is my world. There’s no one that does what I do,” he says.