Boundary-less: Malika Zarra and "No Borders"

Today's random tune, No Borders, is performed by Malika Zarra. Zarra was born in Morocco to a Berber mother and a Moroccan father and she grew up in Paris though her family remained culturally Moroccan in the home. She became interested in jazz because she noticed its improvisational similarities to Arab music, and studied jazz in Tours and Marseilles. She began getting attention when she started singing jazz standards with her own Arab translations. She is influenced by styles such as traditional Berber music, Gnawa music, Chaabi, French popular music, jazz, house, funk, dance, and traditional African music, and her personal influences include artists such as Farid al-Atrash, Um Kalthoum, Warda Al-Jazairia, Ella Fitzgerald, Bobby McFerrin, Thelonious Monk, Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin. You can find No Borders on her 2011 CD Berber Taxi. While the song sounds like it has lyrics, it is really Zarra's wordless voice playing off the bass playing of the song's composer, Mamadou Ba.

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malika_Zarra

My Spring: Malika Zarra and "Mon Printemps"

Today's random tune, Mon Printemps, is performed by Malika Zarra. Zarra was born in Morocco to a Berber mother and a Moroccan father and she grew up in Paris though her family remained culturally Moroccan in the home. She became interested in jazz because she noticed its improvisational similarities to Arab music, and studied jazz in Tours and Marseilles. She began getting attention when she started singing jazz standards with her own Arab translations. She is influenced by styles such as traditional Berber music, Gnawa music, Chaabi, French popular music, jazz, house, funk, dance, and traditional African music, and her personal influences include artists such as Farid al-Atrash, Um Kalthoum, Warda Al-Jazairia, Ella Fitzgerald, Bobby McFerrin, Thelonious Monk, Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin. You can find Mon Printemps on her 2011 CD Berber Taxi.

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malika_Zarra

A Tiny Peep: Malika Zarra and "Little Voice"

Our tune today, Little Voice, is performed by Malika Zarra. Zarra was born in Morocco to a Berber mother and a Moroccan father and she grew up in Paris though her family remained culturally Moroccan in the home. She became interested in jazz because she noticed its improvisational similarities to Arab music, and studied jazz in Tours and Marseilles. She began getting attention when she started singing jazz standards with her own Arab translations. She is influenced by styles such as traditional Berber music, Gnawa music, Chaabi, French popular music, jazz, house, funk, dance, and traditional African music, and her personal influences include artists such as Farid al-Atrash, Um Kalthoum, Warda Al-Jazairia, Ella Fitzgerald, Bobby McFerrin, Thelonious Monk, Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin. You can find Little Voice on her 2011 CD Berber Taxi.

Desert Cab: Malika Zarra and "Berber Taxi"

Today's tune is called Berber Taxi and is performed by Malika Zarra. Zarra was born in Morocco to a Berber mother and a Moroccan father and she grew up in Paris though her family remained culturally Moroccan in the home. She became interested in jazz because she noticed its improvisational similarities to Arab music, and studied jazz in Tours and Marseilles. She began getting attention when she started singing jazz standards with her own Arab translations. She is influenced by styles such as traditional Berber music, Gnawa music, Chaabi, French popular music, jazz, house, funk, dance, and traditional African music, and her personal influences include artists such as Farid al-Atrash, Um Kalthoum, Warda Al-Jazairia, Ella Fitzgerald, Bobby McFerrin, Thelonious Monk, Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin. You can find Berber Taxi on her 2011 CD of the same name.

At the Berber's: Malika Zarra and "Tamazight"

Malika Zarra brings us the random tune for today, called Tamazight. Zarra was born in Morocco to a Berber mother and a Moroccan father and she grew up in Paris though her family remained culturally Moroccan in the home. She became interested in jazz because she noticed its improvisational similarities to Arab music, and studied jazz in Tours and Marseilles. She began getting attention when she started singing jazz standards with her own Arab translations. She is influenced by styles such as traditional Berber music, Gnawa music, Chaabi, French popular music, jazz, house, funk, dance, and traditional African music, and her personal influences include artists such as Farid al-Atrash, Um Kalthoum, Warda Al-Jazairia, Ella Fitzgerald, Bobby McFerrin, Thelonious Monk, Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin. You can find Tamazight on her 2011 release Berber Taxi.

Forgetting: Malika Zarra and "Amnesia"

In this song, Moroccan/French singer Malika Zarra sings about a type of amnesia, one in which you forget what you are.  In this context, it's a cultural and ethnic amnesia.  It is an amnesia when people try to play in to the dominant culture, and perhaps feel accepted when they are really aren't.  "Who the hell do you think you are?" is always just below the surface.  That treatment, especially over generations, wears one down so that in the end, even though they tried to assimilate, they find that their children are playing the djembe (a native African instrument), as Zarra eloquently sings.

To me the lyrics seem to be a damning indictment of cultural assimilation, though I'm not so certain that assimilation can't happen.  The United States has been a place where some groups, Italians and Germans for example, have assimilated even though they faced initial resistance and discrimination.  However, they were white.  Ethnic minorities have had a more difficult time, and assimilation into the dominant culture as sometimes been shaky at best partly because American culture has been notoriously unwelcoming to non-whites - slavery, discrimination, and segregation have been the impediments to those groups who may have wanted nothing more than to assimilate.  And of course, no group wants to completely leave their cultural heritage behind, yet to non-whites, Americans have almost demanded it.  The dominant culture thinks it's quaint to be Irish American or German American and hold onto those old world traditions.  The dominant culture often thinks that non-white traditions are alien, suspicious and perhaps even a bit dangerous despite the fact that we often borrow the cuisines, the festivals and other aspects of the cultures.  In this case, it is impossible to completely amnesiac - if the dominant culture doesn't completely trust you, you seek comfort in what you know.

Just musings brought on from this song, Amnesia. Malika Zarra was born in Morocco and moved to Paris when she was young. She studied clarinet in school, but it was the similarity of the core of improvisation present in both Arabic traditional music and jazz that brought her to jazz music. She studied in jazz conservatories in Tours and Marseilles and began to appear at Paris jazz venues, drawing attention to herself by singing jazz standards in Arabic translation. In 2010 she moved to the New York City area. Her music is influenced by traditional Berber music, Gnawa music, Chaabi, French pop, jazz, house, funk, dance and traditional African music as well as individual artists including Farid al-Atrash, Umm Kulthum, Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, and Thelonious Monk. She has released two albums. Amnesia is from her 2011 album Berber Taxi.