Born in Ankara in 1954 and raised in the East Anatolian town of Elazig, Erkan Ogur took up violin during childhood and acquired the cumbus, a compact fretless lute, by observing regional players who performed traditional wedding dances. The sound of Jimi Hendrix on the radio proved transformative, prompting him to pursue guitar studies while still in high school. On a physics scholarship in Munich he shifted his focus entirely to music, immersing himself in classical repertoire until severe wrist inflammation, combined with his interest in rendering Turkish maqams on guitar, led him to construct a fretless instrument. An encounter in Istanbul with Robert “One Man Band” Johnson took him to the United States for two years of road blues work; returning to Turkey in the 1980s, he completed his Conservatory training, after which his guitar and saz contributions became prized by pop producers and appear on Sezen Aksu’s recordings. His debut album, Fretless, appeared in Germany on Feuer und Ice; subsequent Turkish releases on Kalan include Gülün Kokusu Vardı (1998), Hiç (Nothing) with saz and cura player Okan Murat Öztürk (1999), Anadolu Beşik and Bir Ömürlük Misafir (the latter featuring a duet with Philip Catherine) along with the soundtrack to Yavuz Turgul’s film Eşkıya (all 2000), and Fuad (2001) with Djivan Gasparyan. He performs with Öztürk’s Bengi saz Trio and leads the unrecorded Telvin Trio, whose concentrated yet spontaneous improvisations draw on the spirit of John Coltrane and Bill Evans within the traditional maqam framework, of which Ogur remains a leading exponent.
