Jazz musician Muvaffak 'Maffy' Falay passes away at 92

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Jazz musician and trumpet player Ahmet Muvaffak "Maffy" Falay has passed away at the age of 92.

Kerem Görsev, a renowned pianist who announced Falay's passing on Twitter, described him as "a doyen of jazz music" and "a great master who taught a unique repertoire to young musicians."

Maffy Falay was born on August 30, 1930, in Kuşadası, Manisa, in western Turkey. He started his music life in 1942 at the Kuşadası Band with renowned bandmaster Halil Bereket. He studied trumpet and piano for seven years at Ankara Conservatory.

He was among those who welcomed world famous jazz trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie when he visited Ankara, Turkey's capital, in 1956. Later, Gillespie mentioned Falay in an article published in the DownBeat magazine, describing him as a trumpet player comparable to Miles Davis and Roy Eldridge, two famous trumpet players of the time.

Muvaffak “Maffy” Falay, 1956 yılının 22 Nisan günü Türkiye’ye gelen Dizzy Gillespie’yi Ankara’da karşılayan ekipteydi. Fotoğrafta Dizzy’nin elini sıkarken görünüyor. Yanında Erol Pekcan var; arkasında kontrbasıyla Süheyl Denizci ve tromboncu Sabahattin Doğanöz duruyor.#Maffy pic.twitter.com/IlSitc89qA

— Murat Meriç (@PopDedik) February 22, 2022

Falay later moved to Sweden and joined Kurt Edelhagen's Radio Orchestra in Cologne, Germany. He played together with the Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland Big Band, a prominent international jazz orchestra.  He joined the Dizzy Gillespie Réunion Big Band in 1970.

Having worked with many musicians, Falay founded his own jazz band "Sevda" in 1985. With the band, he became one of the first musicians to fuse traditional Turkish music to jazz.

On June 21, 2011, a statue of Falay sculpted by Tülin Atalay was erected in his hometown, Kuşadası. (AÖ/VK)

(AÖ/VK)