Enver
Enver Izmaylov : The Guitar Legend Of Crimea (UKR,1992-2007)***°'
Enver Izmaylov is a gifted Ukrainian folk and jazz guitarist from Tatar origin (he also graduated on bassoon). He often uses the original jazz technique of tapping the strings with 2 hands. He does this most often on amplified guitar, but I saw him playing different techniques too, as well as slide tapping on acoustic guitar (besides more known techniques, with very developed improvisation, based upon Turkish and other folk tunes). His range of techniques is simply amazing. In combination with a bit of guitar tapping (not on the strings this time), the additional rhythmical sounds almost could sound like he's rapping to it. Rhythmically, some guitar pieces are also often combined with vocal raps, a bit like Indian rhythmic vocal sounds, but then focused on what the guitar produces. With the help of pedals he is able to add new different layers of instant directly recorded time intervalled recordings, to add vocals, tappings, or sliding sounds.
Enver is so used to play with the sounds on the guitar, on one point in one of the recorded performances, like a small intermezzo, he imitates some sounds on his guitar like a passing airplane, an attending motor while a car passes by and sound its horn, a small kitten and a dog). Not only rhythmical vocals can be heard, but also overtone singing, revealing his Tatar origin. He plays more than once mused medley’s of folk dance tunes (of Turkish, Uzbek, and Balkan origin), with a bit of jazz, playfully interwoven. You can clearly hear that his roots, a reference to his roots and origins in the Ukraine territory, with South and Central Asian influences as well as some shared musical themes and techniques from the Middle East. He often easily plays within rhythms like 4/8,7/8,11/8,11/16 and 13/16 !
His daughter, Leniye Izmaylova, now a popular Crimean Tatar singer, is also added on two tracks. The first, and only video clip, is a funky, being “playfully tough” dance pop tune, with very fast tapping guitars. On the second, live occasion, she takes over Enver’s singing technique following the complex rhythmical tunes, rap-like and imitating this with her voice, while adding a few slower wordless fantasies of her own improvised invention.
Extremely small segments of two interviews are interwoven too, but, because this is only a few seconds each, this works very much as a visual intermission (-we don’t understand Russian-), so that it fits well enough like images for those who can’t understand.
Perhaps one or two guitar pieces were a bit similar, so might not have been absolutely necessary to be included, in that way that the 120 minutes on such moments became less impressive as elsewhere, but in general I must say this left a remarkable impression. I know very much where to place him and what I can expect at a live concert. The video very much works as a listening experience.* *
(I noticed by the way you could eventually play the record on a regular DVD player and just play the audio).
PS. This private DVD is distributed in Europe through Finland (see links).
