Enver Izmaylov: from Fergana weddings to the Lausanne Grand Prix

Enver Izmaylov was born on 12 June 1955 in Fergana, Uzbekistan, into a Crimean Tatar family that had been deported from Crimea. He picked up the guitar at about fifteen and taught himself. At the Fergana music school he studied bassoon, and before music became his profession he worked as a gas welder. The liner notes to his 1999 album say his real schooling came from playing solo at village weddings in Uzbekistan.

He started in an amateur ensemble and then joined the jazz group Sato, led by L. Atabekov. With Sato he played jazz festivals in Tashkent in 1981 and Fergana in 1984, and later travelled to Ashgabat, Moscow and Tallinn. Sato recorded two albums, the first of them Efsane in 1986. Around the same time, in the early 1980s, Izmaylov worked out his two-handed tapping technique.

In the late 1980s he moved to Crimea. According to the Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine, he lived there from 1988 and taught music in Dzhankoi. In 1990 he graduated from the Tashkent Institute of Culture, where S. Aliev was his teacher, and played a solo programme at the Tallinn Jazz Festival. Since then he has performed mostly as a soloist. The author of the Minaret liner notes adds that he lives in a Crimean village and feels at home there.

Audiences abroad first heard him in April 1993 at the Vossa Jazz festival in Norway. The same liner notes report that the Norwegian press compared him to Paco de Lucia and John McLaughlin. Tours of France, Switzerland, Germany and Scandinavia followed. In 1995 Izmaylov won the Grand Prix at the first International Competition of Guitarists of Europe in Lausanne, and Ukrainian music critics named him Musician of the Year.

Also in 1995 he formed the trio Minaret with Rustem Bari on percussion and Narket Ramazanov on saxophone, clarinet and flute. The trio recorded the album Minaret in Kyiv in 1998, and Boheme Music released it in 1999. The catalogue later grew with River of Time (2008) and Meganom, Silk Road and The Storm (all 2012). The Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine counts more than thirty compact discs. Catalogues and streaming services spell his name Izmaylov, Izmailov and İzmaylov, so a search for his records needs all three.

From 2000 Izmaylov worked at the Crimean Tatar Musical and Drama Theatre, and since 2002 he has performed with his daughter, the singer L. Izmailova. In 2009 he received the title People's Artist of Ukraine. Two documentaries have been made about him: With Best Wishes! Enver (2005, directed by V. Melnikova) and Air of the House (2009, directed by N. Firsich).