ABSTRACT
Born in Istanbul, Turkey, Mardin has been a legendary producer of jazz, R&B, and pop recordings for over four decades. Born to a prominent Turkish family, Mardin became interested in jazz at the age of 10 when he heard his first Duke Ellington recording; he began playing piano and eventually arranging for a local band as a teenager, while also studying economics. In 1956, Quincy Jones and Dizzy Gillespie toured Turkey as part of a U.S. State Department-sponsored trip; Jones heard Mardin’s arrangements and recommended him to be the first Quincy Jones Scholarship recipient at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. Mardin arrived at the school in 1958 and, upon graduation, continued as an instructor until 1963, when he met Atlantic Records’ executive Nesuhi Ertegun; Ertegun hired him as his assistant, and Mardin was quickly put in charge of arranging and running Atlantic’s New York studio.
