Udi Hrant Kenkulian (Traditional Crossroads)

Owner of the honorific “udi” signifying his doyen designation on the oud, Kenkulian first made his mark with a series of 78s recorded by RCA in the early 1920s. This collection captures him on more modern equipment in a New York City hotel room sans accompaniment. Just oud and voice in intimately rendered tandem revisiting a series of classical taksims. Kenkulian is sometimes characterized as a purveyor of the Turkish “blues” and his congenital blindness makes comparison to American Pre-War bluesmen all the more convenient. I also hear a kinship to Roscoe Holcomb in his “high lonesome” picking and singing, but any Western corollaries are merely ancillary. His repertoire has indelible roots in the musical traditions of the Ottoman Empire, filtered through the sieve of his own influential advancements on the instrument. Details and subtleties not entirely audible on his early works abound. His tactile interpretations of traditional modal structures contain plenty of grin-inducing moments as notes pile up in perfectly stacked tonal symmetry. The Ampex tape technology also allows him to stretch out, in one case to a dazzling seven minutes on the “Hüzzam Taksim”. Kenkulian’s career was the stuff of celebrated legend and these late in life performances prove why and whence the adulation. A back booklet photo pictures him holding both ud and violin. Evidence of his prowess on the latter instrument is accessible on two collections of his earlier works from Traditional Crossroads, each to my ears as essential as this one.