Silence, fourths, India

In 1993, Çağlayan Yıldız took roughly a year away from making music. In Kaş, he read, meditated and reconsidered music’s place in his life. When he returned to the guitar, he replaced standard tuning with E–A–D–G–C–F, placing a perfect fourth between every adjacent pair of strings. A change first experienced through playing would later become the subject of his master’s thesis.

In 1994 and 1996 he made two journeys to India, each lasting about six months. He studied music and philosophy and worked with sitarist Shubhendra Rao. Listening to long concerts mattered to his thinking about music, the mind and flow. He does not present these travels as an enlightenment story in which every question found its answer.

While maintaining his life in Kaş, he also worked in İstanbul. Playing in Butch Morris’s ensemble in the late nineties led him to consider composition alongside improvisation directed through signs. AZ, with Oğuz Büyükberber, was released in 1998. The first album by Trio Mrio, in which he played with Sarp Maden and Volkan Öktem, appeared that same year. Trio Mrio’s compositions came from Yıldız’s and Maden’s existing work, opening into new directions when played together.

Alongside jazz, he took part in pop recordings and tours. He played guitar on Barış Manço’s Mançoloji, arranged for Grup Gündoğarken and toured with Tarkan. He taught at Akademi İstanbul in 1998–1999 and began contributing criticism to Jazz Dergisi in 1998. Performing, writing and teaching continued as different kinds of work within the same life.

A year in a television band

In the second half of the nineties, he spent a year on the Cem Özer Show in a band led by pianist Tolga Tüzün. What stands out in his account is accompanying musicians from widely different musical backgrounds.