In a multicultural town like Chicago, New Year’s Day comes several times a year.
And certainly one of the most festive is the Persian New Year (Nooroz), coinciding with the vernal equinox, which brought in one of Europe’s hottest world-music acts Friday night to perform before about 1,300 Iranian-Americans at the Chicago Hilton and Towers.
The band was Alabina, a dynamic Paris-based ensemble whose multiethnic makeup requires a little explaining. Ishtar, the band’s lead songstress, hails from Israel of Moroccan and Egyptian parents. Her backing band are Spanish-speaking French Gypsies who call themselves Los Ninos de Sara and churn out a driving flamenco sound similar to that of the Gypsy Kings.
Two years ago, a clever producer brought the two forces together to create a music that has been dubbed Egyptian-Gypsy and desert rumba. Whatever the name, it is a dazzling hybrid of music that does more than play up North African undertones of flamenco; it takes them to an entirely different level.
But how did this gold-tressed, non-Persian-speaking (although she’s rumored to speak seven languages) singer become the darling of the Iranian diaspora? According to one of the show’s promoters, Alabina is the creation of Iranians in Israel who have marketed the band to the Iranian diaspora all over Europe, California and, last summer, New York. The band’s popularity has since spread to other communities, but it still holds special popularity with Iranians.
On Friday night, this Israeli diva with the gigantic blond hair entranced New Year’s revelers with a two-hour-plus set of originals and covers that included some of Middle Eastern music’s most beloved chestnuts.
In a bold and successful artistic move, Alabina takes old classics such as “Habibi” and “Salama,” spikes them with a good shot of flamenco guitar and reinvents the songs as their own.
Although she sings in Hebrew, Arabic and Spanish (including a mean salsa-tinged “Yo Te Quiero, Tu Me Quieres”), the Western vocally trained Ishtar only recently mastered the kinds of spiraling wails and lilting trills associated with Middle Eastern vocal styles.
And while her voice tackles both styles well, her hips–which have more moves than Michael Jackson’s entire body and Madonna-like sex appeal–comprise just as much of the entertainment package.
As the night drifted into Saturday morning, the dance floor full of well-dressed fans boogied on with hands raised in the air and sang along to numbers that still sounded remarkably fresh–one of the benefits of playing the first day of spring and a brand new year.
