Duke Ellington might have liked whatsnext?; Gil Evans and Lalo Schifrin might also have endorsedthis recreation of orchestral jazz with a decided bent toward the jazz-influencedTV and movie scores of the ’60s and ’70s. Turkish born, Boston-based composerMehmet Ali Sanlikol wields a big band with occasional jazz-rock fusion touchesand carefully tuned references to rhythms and melodies that flourished withinthe Ottoman Empire. Unlike most careless “world musicians,” Sanlikol is wiselyskeptical in fusing different musical languages and takes care to ensure thatthe syntax matches before vocabularies are combined.
