Ahmet Ertegun - Background

Background

Born in Istanbul to a Turkish family, Ahmet and his family, including elder brother Nesuhi, moved to Washington, D.C. in 1935, with their father, Münir Ertegün, who served as the first Ambassador of the then-young Republic of Turkey to the United States of America.

Ahmet's older brother Nesuhi introduced him to jazz music, taking him to see the Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway orchestras in London at the age of nine. At the age of fourteen his mother bought him a record-cutting machine which he used to compose and add lyrics to instrumental records.

Ahmet's love for music pulled him into the heart of Washington, DC's black district where he would routinely see acts such as Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and countless others. While he did attend Landon School, an affluent all-male private school in Bethesda, Maryland, Ahmet would joke, "I got my real education at Howard." Despite his affluent upbringing, Ahmet began to see a different world than his affluent peers. Ahmet would later say "I began to discover a little bit about the situation of black people in America and experienced immediate empathy with the victims of such senseless discrimination. Because although Turks were never slaves, they were regarded as enemies within Europe because of their Muslim beliefs."

The brothers also frequented Milt Gabler’s Commodore Record Store, assembled a large collection of over 15,000 jazz and blues 78s, and became acquainted with musicians such as Ellington, Lena Horne and Jelly Roll Morton. Ahmet and Nesuhi staged concerts by Lester Young, Sidney Bechet and other jazz giants, often at the Jewish Community Center, which was the only place that would allow a mixed audience and mixed band. They also traveled to New Orleans and to Harlem to listen to music and develop a keen awareness of developing musical tastes.

Ahmet graduated from St. John's College in Annapolis in 1944. In 1944 Munir Ertegün died, and in 1946 President Truman ordered the battleship USS Missouri to return the deceased to Turkey as a demonstration of friendship between US and Turkey. This act also served as a show of support to counter the Soviet Union's potential political demands on Turkey. At the time of his father’s death he was taking graduate courses in Medieval philosophy at Georgetown University. Soon after, the family returned to Turkey. Ahmet and Nesuhi stayed in the United States. While Nesuhi moved to Los Angeles, Ahmet stayed in Washington and decided to get into the record business as a temporary measure to help him through college.