İlham Gencer

İlham Gencer — Biography

Bozkurt İlham Gencer was born on 30 August 1925 in the Bakırköy district of Istanbul; taught by his mother, he was already playing piano and composing by the age of five and never received any other musical training. He entered professional music in Beyoğlu in 1944, hosted programmes on Istanbul Radio from 1949 to 1963, and was one of Turkey's first pianist-vocalists, helping popularise jazz in the country. A folk tune he taught American singer Eartha Kitt in 1953 became a worldwide hit under the name "Uska Dara". At the Çatı Club he opened in Şişli in 1960, he gave a start to numerous performers including Ajda Pekkan, Cem Karaca, Barış Manço and Emel Sayın; a song he performed there the following year, Bak Bir Varmış Bir Yokmuş, is regarded as the first Turkish-language pop record. He won best composition at the Bosphorus Music Festival in 1964. Describing himself as a committed Turkish nationalist, he advised politician Alparslan Türkeş, ran as a candidate for the MHP party, and in 2008 had his name legally changed to Bozkurt İlham Gençer. After his marriage to singer Ayten Alpman, he married Necla Gençer; his jazz-vocalist daughter Ayşe died in late 2022, a few months before he did. Gencer himself died in Bodrum on 24 May 2023 and was buried at Zincirlikuyu Cemetery.