Pharaoh's Daughter concert review

[Seth Rogovoy <rogovoy...>]

Khevre: As you can see from the below, I and my family had the wonderful
thrill of seeing Pharaoh's Daughter, featuring the lovely and incredibly
talented listmember Basya Schechter, last night in Great Barrington, Mass.
It was a rare night of genuine soul music, as I've written in this review,
tailored to the readership of a general-interest newspaper:
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Pharaoh’s Daughter lights up Club Helsinki with Jewish soul (11/9/00)

by Seth Rogovoy

(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass., November 10, 2000) – By the time
South County was plunged into darkness on Thursday night due to a
blackout, Jewish world-beat ensemble Pharaoh’s Daughter had already
charged up the audience at Club Helsinki with enough electricity of its
own to fuel the rest of the evening’s performance. Candles and flashlights
replaced spotlights, and Pharaoh’s Daughter played campfire-style,
without microphones or amplification.

The unplugged nature of the second half of the evening didn’t matter one
whit. In fact, it probably only added to the powerful, mystical ambiance
lead vocalist Basya Schechter and her sextet had already created with
their alluring mixture of Middle Eastern, Indian, and Jewish-European
melodies, rhythms and textures.

Club Helsinki has already seen itself transformed by various musicians
into a Louisiana roadhouse, a folk coffeehouse, a jazz joint, and a rock
club. On Thursday night, Pharaoh’s Daughter provided an essence of
Middle Eastern souk or casbah, with its sinuous melodies and snakelike,
irregular polyrhythms. With two percussionists, a bassist, a woodwind
player and two guitarists, the band was able to weave a variety of patterns
ranging from the haunting to the celebratory.

Schechter was a compelling presence, one who would probably blend in
easily in Istanbul or Tangiers in spite of her Brooklyn origins. Her voice,
with a natural quaver or vibrato, was eminently suited to the wailing,
chant-like style favored by Middle Eastern soul singers.

And soul music is Pharaoh’s Daughter’s business. The group combs places
as far-flung as Armenia, India and Algeria for song styles that suit
Schechter’s vocal texts: nigunim, or Hasidic-style wordless devotional
melodies, Biblical and liturgical excerpts, or original lyrics.

Schechter bounced effortlessly from Hebrew to Yiddish to Ladino to English
on songs including an Armenian setting of “Lecha Dodi,” which featured a
duet between her vocals and electric guitarist Benoir, and “Shnirele
 Perele,”
a traditional Yiddish song about the coming of the Messiah whose melodic
roots trace back to Turkey.

On this latter song in particular, Schechter hit some stirring emotional
notes,
the kind that a listener feels deep inside the spine. Her cantorial-style
slides
and slurs did melodic flips and somersaults as the musicians provided a funk
pulse that made the music the Jewish equivalent of gospel testifying.
When the lights went out a few minutes later, more than one listener
commented that it was as if the spiritual electricity she had channeled
caused
a short-circuit in the earthly electric grid.

“Afilu,” which Schechter said was inspired by her pious grandfather, bore
the
dynamics of progressive rock. The song’s one-chord, modal drone was
heightened by Benoir’s electric guitar solo at the end, which pushed the
tune
into Velvet Underground territory.

Throughout the evening, Schechter doubled on acoustic guitar and oud, a
large,
mandolin-like instrument. Tracey Love-Wright juggled duty on flute,
melodica,
whistles and other woodwind-type instruments, while accompanying Schechter
beautifully on harmony vocals.

Pharaoh’s Daughter had varying effects on its audience. Some were moved
to dance improvisationally off in a corner, acting out in movement the drama
inherent in the music. Others rocked in their seats to the music’s ineffable
pulse. Some felt moved to sing along whenever possible, while still others
floated along on the music’s ethereal wings, like those of an eagle
Schechter
sang about at one point, an eagle that would spread its wings and take the
deserving ones to a promised land, perhaps not unlike the place where
Schechter and Pharaoh’s Daughter took a club full of inspired listeners
on Thursday night.

[This review originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on Nov. 11, 2000.
Copyright Seth Rogovoy 2000. All rights reserved.]


Seth Rogovoy
author of "The Essential Klezmer: A Music Lover's Guide to Jewish Roots and
Soul"
http://www.algonquin.com/catalog/pagemaker.cgi?1-56512-244-5
"invaluable" -- New York Times

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