By JACK BOWERS, All About Jazz
4 Stars!
After listing the personnel (which varies on every track) for Turkish-born composer Mehmet Ali Sanlikol’s new CD, What’s Next?, there’s scarcely room for a review. Well, perhaps a small one, starting with the fact that Sanlikol, a graduate of the Berklee School of Music and New England Conservatory, first studied classical piano with his mother, Fethiye Sanlikol, and by age five was presenting public recitals in his homeland. After further studies, with Turkish composer / jazz pianist Aydin Esen (to whom the album is dedicated), he earned a scholarship to Berklee and co-founded the electric band AudioFact, with whom he recorded two albums, in 1998 and 2003. More recently, Sanlikol helped found and is president of Dunya, a musicians’ collective that “explores a cosmopolitan view of the world through the lens of a wide range of Turkish traditions . . .”
Read more here.