While vacationing in the Florida Keys last week I hit a couple of the local thrift shops. One had some good LPs including an unplayed promo copy of Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera (mono US issue on Epic) – not a bad thrift find in this day and age. A second shop seemed like a bust and I was about to leave when, on top of a box of VHS tapes, I found a stack of a dozen Turkish 45s circa 1967. Some of the records looked as if they’d never been played, and one was even in the original small paper shop bag it had been put into when it was purchased over 40 years ago.

From this batch, here’s Berkant with the Vasfi Uçaroğlu Orkestrasi: Turgut Dalar (piano), Nevzat Yalaz (saxophone), Erol Sidal (trumpet), Jean Sirap (guitar) and Erdoğan Serdar (bass). Vasfi Uçaroğlu is the drummer; his frisky fills and fast tapping are the highlights of these songs.

Berkant sang with this group from about 1965 until 1968, when they added a female vocalist, Kamuran Akkor. In fact, Vasfi Uçaroğlu’s Orchestra is the group backing her on “Sevgi Nedir Hiç Bilmedim”, which I featured a few years back. For much of 1968 both singers performed with the group, as shown in many listings and ads in newspapers from the time.

“Şu Aydinin Uşaği” reminds me of “Jaan Pechechaan Ho”. “Dere Geliyor Dere” draws from some of the atmospheric effects of Italian soundtrack music from the time, plus it has some fine stop and start passages. This was released on Sahibinin Sesi, which I believe translates to “His Master’s Voice”, thus the logo on the right of the label. Turgut Dalar arranged both sides.

I can’t find any detailed information on Berkant, but some info on Vasfi Uçaroğlu is here, though in Turkish, and I haven’t found a good automatic online translator for Turkish to English yet.