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Malika Zarra

About Me

Moroccan world jazz singer/composer/producer, Malika Zarra is a multi-cultural shape- shifter, an enchantress who leaps effortlessly between seemingly unconnected languages and traditions, uniting them while utilizing each to further enrich the others. The exotically beautiful artist with the velvety, sinuous mezzo-soprano voice has demonstrated a rare ability to communicate both powerful and subtle ideas and feelings in French, English and Moroccan Arabic. Christina Roden

The lines between Middle Eastern music and jazz are there to be drawn. Ornette Coleman has played with the Master Musicians of Joujouka, and Pharoah Sanders recorded an album with Maleem Mahmoud Ghania, of the Gnawa tribe. Now, Moroccan vocalist Malika Zarra is arriving at this crossroads from the opposite direction, infusing the music of her native culture with jazz. Her self-released debut CD, On The Ebony Road, mixes rhythms from chaâbi, Berber and Gnawa music with jazzy improvisation and smooth, seductive vocals. Phil Freeman