Yemen Blues Delivers Dynamic Show

Article by Rebecca Romani

(Encinitas) Despite barely making it to San Diego from the snow-bound East Coast and temporarily losing two members due to flight delays, the Middle East/fusion world music, Yemen Blues burned up the stage at La Paloma Theatre in Encinitas in Sunday, March 1, 2015.

Playing to a nearly sold-out house, Yemen Blues, led by 35 year old Yemeni-Israeli singer and musician, Ravid Kahalani, delivered one of the most dynamic live shows La Paloma has probably ever seen. Featuring a fascinating and masterful blend of music with roots in traditional Jewish Yemeni pieces, West African rhythms and the deep soul of American Blues, Sunday’s concert was the group’s San Diego Premiere on a tour that has taken Yemen Blues from points north in Europe, through the US and back down to Israel, where Kahalani and some of the other band members live when not on the road.”

“The music develops organically,” Kahalani told Vanguard Culture in a phone interview. “I integrate what I hear and I learn a lot from the musicians I play with.”

It’s a heady mix that found its visual echo in the Art Deco Moorish revival style of La Paloma, a (restored) theatre built in 1928. La Paloma’s painted and stenciled ceilings and Moorish tile were visual reminders that the connections that World Beat celebrates have been with us all along.

At first the audience seemed slightly perplexed by the rolling rhythms and Kahalani’s use of multiples languages from Jewish Yemeni Arabic to Hebrew to Creole. However, Kahalani and percussionist Itamari Doari gradually won them over with the infectious pace, and soon a few brave souls had ventured to dance in the aisles, followed by a few more and then groups of people who had given up trying to sit still.

Despite a grueling concert schedule that has seen the band in over 20 venues in about three weeks, Kahalani’s voice was strong, confident and under dazzling control as he moved between traditional Yemeni melodies to Moroccan dance music to a fusion of jazz and African pop that would be as at home in the clubs of Dakar, Senegal as on the streets of Detroit. Kahalani’s is a nuanced, rich voice with a surprisingly wide-range. Often soaring to the rafters of the theatre, turning and gliding in the ornamental way typical of much of Middle Eastern music where the world is contained in a seemingly never ending syllable before going on to the next shimmering quarter note, it would then settle in a warm but gravely bass only to bounce back up in a tenor turned falsetto and back again.

Kahalani was at his best when accompanying himself with a deft counterpoint on his guembri, a squarish, long necked Moroccan guitar often played by Morocco’s Gnaoui, a musical brotherhood descended from slaves. But true to Yemen Blues’ way of putting a new twist on an old concept, Kahalani’s guembri was all modern materials: plastic, nylon strings and an amp to lend its slightly twangy voice heft.

Keeping up with Kahalani was Doari who delivered an impressive virtuoso performance on the darbouka (Middle Eastern drum) as well as a number of peripheral instruments. Doari, probably one of the versatile percussionists playing World Music today, has been performing with various groups since he was 17. His extended solo raised the audience as he moved between instruments and rhythms, creating a rolling layered percussion that many of the audience members might have found reminiscent of the Rolling Stones and early 80’s bands. Doari was accompanied by two local last minute side musicians who did an extraordinary job of keeping up with the intricate riffs and improvisations.

In one of his most challenging pieces “Min Kalbi (From My Heart),’ Kahalani laid wide open the fusion he and the band have so successfully created. Like its lyrics: (in translation), a mix of Hebrew and Yemeni Arabic:

It doesn’t matter where you come from
Your language is my language
It doesn’t matter to which God you pray
The melody is always coming from my soul

Kahalani guided the music on a seemingly seamless journey through its Yemeni roots and into raucous, danceable sounds that got the audience tentatively up on its feet and then happily in the aisles. “Min Kalbi” from the group’s first album and the dense and moving “Mountains Will Dance” from their upcoming album were typical of a fast paced set in which piece after piece flowed into each other so easily it was sometime unclear where one began and the other took up.

Yemen Blues has become the new whiz kid of the world of World Beat with a sound that slips along the old Salt roads of North Africa and pours through the elegant Mississippi blues of Muddy Waters. Kahalani, the son of a well-known musical family of Yemeni Jews grew up singing the traditional Jewish Yemeni liturgy. His musical interests soon took him further afield and a stint in Belgrade introduced him to Serbian chant. Eventually, Kahalani, said, he felt a pull back towards his roots and started feeling his way towards a sound that brought his influences into dynamic co-existence.

Kahalani is not alone in his bringing his Jewish Arabic traditions forward. The distinct sound of Jewish Arabic music used to be a bit of a backwater musicians seldom brought into public performances. However, singers like Yemeni-Israeli Ofra Haza broke through the barriers with “Fifty Gates of Wisdom,” in the late 80’s, opening the way for performers like Kahalani to further play with the sounds and rhythms from Arab Jewish traditions.

What makes Kahalani and Yemen Blues such an exciting group to follow is Kahalani’s interest and ability to learn from and work in the various musical idioms he and the diverse musicians who make up the core of the group.

It’s the fascinating mix of European and more unusual instruments like the Moroccan guembri that pulls listeners in and the infectious, joyful combination of diverse but interrelated genres that has music critics hailing Yemen Blues as THE World Beat group to watch.

Once back in Israel, Kahalani told Vanguard Culture, Yemen Blues won’t have much time to rest. Look for their second album later this year, produced by bassist and legendary World Music producer Bill Laswell.