Let me start right off the bat by admitting that my experiences with world music are limited. I am primarily a fan and consumer of rock (particularly punk, garage rock, British invasion, Indy and new wave) and jazz.
I do own and regularly listen to around a dozen recordings that could be roughly categorized as world music including The Pipes of Pan (produced by the long gone but not forgotten ex Rolling Stone, Brian Jones) featuring the Master Musicians of Jajouka, World Spirituality Classics 1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda, The Indestructible Beat of Soweto series, The Buena Vista Social Club soundtrack, Kabbalah Music, plus a smidgeon of reggae, Latin jazz, and Afro beat. (I am not even counting Gogol Bordello or Gato Barberi).
I also have taught the Music is a Weapon in my classes, a great documentary that is centered on the controversial and brilliant afro beat musician and politician, Fela Kuti, and I attended the Chicago World Music Festivals a few times (I saw two of Fela’s sons play there.) I also saw a show featuring the late Sri Chinmoy, who played over 50 instruments in little over 50 minutes.
Therefore, there were some barriers when I attempted to absorb the fanciful mystical stylings of Niyaz a group of Sufi performers that played a show at Moraine Valley Community College. Including the language, (I do not know Uru, which originated in Pakistan)
The band is currently doing an international tour (primarily in the USA and Canada) and they are performing in several concerts and residencies at educational institutions so they may be coming near you soon. Here is the current touring schedule.
Niyaz is an exciting Canadian/Iranian electro acoustic duo, which incorporates video, movement, song and instrumentation into a mysterious and exotically tasty multi media musical stew. The singer Azam Ali is perhaps best known for providing vocals on the Thor: Darkworld soundtrack. She boldly broke with the traditions of world music by programming electronic beats in the latest show and CD.
Her husband, Loga R. Torkian, her multi-instrumentalist collaborator (in songwriting) always provides accompaniment. She also collaborated with Jerome Delapierrre, an interactive designer/visual artist.
Their latest CD and accompanying tour is called the Fourth Light Object, and it centers around the works of the Rabia Ali Basri, an 8th century Sufi poet from Persia (what is now called Iraq). She was nicknamed the 4rth light hence the title of the recording and show. The poet was largely ignored because the male dominated squeezed her out (the same happened to the English female Romantic poets) but she has recently had a resurgence in popularity. Ali has said “I fell in love with her work: I feel in love with the few poems she left behind.”
The show also featured a talented whirling Dervish who spun around in three striking costumes representing different stages in the road towards wisdom. She appears in black, red and white representing birth or the beginning of the journey to the height of enlightenment to death and the end .Sufis believe that whirling is a form of prayer and/or meditation.
When the Dervish first appeared she had her face covered in a cloak, and her face was hidden which increased the aura of mystery and anticipation around her. Then she uncovered her face and spun around. This reminded me somewhat of Yoko Ono’s classic performance on the Rolling Stone Rock and Roll Circus show (made but never shown on TV) in which she initially appeared covered up with a bag over her head creating a sense of mystery around her.
Many of the numbers, songs such as “Triumph of Love” and “Taste of Love” were accompanied by rich visual screen images of swirling mist shapes and globes, which underlined the exoticism and added to the aura of sacred mystery of the concert. With a combination of modern instruments and ancient themes songs such as “Aurtat” seem to simultaneously point to the past and the future at the same time.
The Fourth Light was a challenging show that dashed much expectations surrounding world music by combining the traditional and modern in an inspiring and enchanting performance. The group is worth a look even for music aficionados that could open doors to new vistas and musical realms (it is fitting that the visuals sometime included opening doors).
Their aims has long been to build a bridge between East and West (in contrast to Trumps) – a sanctuary from a modern world of polarized ideologies.
The show was part of a series at Moraine Valley Community College called Mosaics, which is supposed to build bridges across cultural, racial and religious boundaries. More info on the series can be found here.
