S.O.D. "Dark Alleys" by Arif Mardin

7/25/2017     This should also be a tribute song, as this amazing Turkish-American producer, arranger and musician left us in 2006.  During his career that lasted more than forty years, he produced for many well-known artists including Roberta Flack, Bette Midler, The Bee Gees, Norah Jones and Queen.  

     Mardin became the recipient of 11 Grammys, Man of the Year Award in 2001 from the Nordoff-Robbins Music Foundation, the Ertegun Impact Award, and a Trustee Award for a Lifetime of Achievement in Music from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.  His two album of the year Grammys were for the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack, and "Come Away with Me" by Nora Jones.  

     By his early 20s he was already an accomplished arranger and orchestrator, although never planned on pursuing a musical career.  After meeting Quincy Jones and Dizzy Gillespie at a concert in Ankara, Turkey in 1956, his career was about to change.  He sent three of his own compositions to his friend Tahir Sur, working at a radio station in the U.S.  Sur then presented them to Quincy Jones and he was so impressed he named Mardin the first recipient of the Quincy Jones Scholarship at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.