Harvest Moon

gut

Enver Ismailov lives in Crimea, a peninsula in the Black Sea that used to belong to Greeks, Ottoman Turks, Russians and now is part of Ukraine. He is of Crimean Tatar stock, which means his native music is filled with complicated odd meters resembling Turkish, Balkan and Mediterranean ethnic traditions. Born and raised in Ferghana (now in Uzbekistan), he was exposed to traditional music of Central Asia and began his career performing at Uzbek weddings.

In the late 1970s Ismailov independently developed the technique of tapping without knowing anything about Stanley Jordan, the official pioneer of guitar tapping. In the 1980s Ismailov played with Sato, a groundbreaking ethnic-fusion band that made a sensation at Soviet jazz festivals and recorded a couple of excellent albums. In 1988 he moved to Crimea, and in 1995 was awarded the title of best European guitarist at a guitar festival in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Gitarre virtuos