Önder Focan

Önder Focan started music by playing mandolin at the age of 8. He switched to guitar at 15 and concentrated on jazz in 1975. Being mainly self- taught, he has become a jazz musician most sought after as a guitarist, player, composer arranger and lyrics writer. In 1986, he got married to Zuhal Focan withn whom founded Nardis Jazz Club in 2002.

“Funkbook a la Turc” project has a musical approach that aims to use Turkish themes and melodies along with the jazz harmonies and the improvisations over the forms of the tunes in the jazz funk style. After the early periods of jazz, especially during the Swing period and later, jazz musicians took popular tunes into their repertoire to play them with their own interpretation. They arranged, reharmonized and improvised over these tunes. Honeysuckle Rose, I Got Rhythm, Bye Bye Blackbird in the Swing era, All The Things You Are, My Old Flame in the Be-bop era, My Foolish Heart, My Funny Valentine in the Cool era and following periods are a few examples of popular tunes that the jazz musicians picked up from the popular music realm. These made part of the whole repertoire called Jazz Standards.

“Funkbook a la Turc” project has a musical approach that aims to use Turkish themes and melodies along with the jazz harmonies and the improvisations over the forms of the tunes in the jazz funk style. After the early periods of jazz, especially during the Swing period and later, jazz musicians took popular tunes into their repertoire to play them with their own interpretation. They arranged, reharmonized and improvised over these tunes. Honeysuckle Rose, I Got Rhythm, Bye Bye Blackbird in the Swing era, All The Things You Are, My Old Flame in the Be-bop era, My Foolish Heart, My Funny Valentine in the Cool era and following periods are a few examples of popular tunes that the jazz musicians picked up from the popular music realm. These made part of the whole repertoire called Jazz Standards.