Yemenite blues

Singer Ravid Kahalani wants to push out the bad energy and bring in the good.

By JUDITH SUDILOVSKY
Ravid Kahalani belts it out at a concert in Jerusalem (photo credit: Courtesy)
Ravid Kahalani belts it out at a concert in Jerusalem
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Strutting onto the stage like a low-key James Brown, sporting a skinny, shiny, funky, gold-black suit, a big gold Star of David dangling from a long chain on his chest, and a Prince-inspired but all-his-own pompadour hair style, Yemen Blues’s lead singer, Ravid Kahalani, had the audience at the first song.
Unable to contain themselves even as he strummed just the first chords of the opening song on his three-stringed gimbri, people at the early summer Jerusalem concert in the intimate Beit Avichai garden clapped to the music and jumped from their chairs into the aisles to begin a joyous sort of dance that continued through the night. At some points in the too-short concert, there were more people dancing than sitting.
Clean-cut Itamar Doari and Uruguayanborn Rony Iwryn, with his abundance of blond corkscrew curls, presented an impressive percussion section with a myriad of drums, bells, cymbals, chimes and gourds and other unidentifiable beatkeeping instruments; American-born Shanir Blumenkranz joined in playing the bass and the oud; and later in the show, solo visiting performer Mark Eliyahu regaled the audience with his own beautifully haunting music played on the Caucasian stringed instrument called the kamancha.
All part of the genre known as “World Music,” nobody seemed to mind not understanding the lyrics, which are mainly in Yemenite Arabic.
“As much as I am used to performing, and to all kinds of audiences, it is always very emotional for me when I see people dancing, and that they buy tickets to see us at all,” says the 35-year-old Kahalani in an interview a few days after the concert. “To see people supporting us, from Arab countries, from Europe, all kinds and colors, it always gives us strength to continue.”
Like the Moroccan nomadic Gnawa tribal instrument he opens the concert with, Kahalani’s own musical journey has taken him great distances, beginning as a five-year-old singing traditional Yemenite songs and prayers diligently taught to him by his father, who together with his mother immigrated to Israel from Kohlan near the Sanaa district in Yemen.
Growing up in Bat Yam, Elon Moreh, Holon and Tel Aviv, Kahalani was exposed in his teenage years to classical music, but upon discovering jazz, blues, and funk, he became enamored of it.
“Music has been the journey of my life. When I left home I listened to all kinds of music. As long as I can remember, I have always loved to sing songs in gibberish, so when I started singing the blues it felt very natural,” he says.
Mainly self-taught, Kahalani also studied drumming with Chen Zimbalista, and his first experience as a professional singer on stage came in 2003 at the Israel Festival, where he sang in falsetto voice in a dance show called “Joy” by choreographer and dancer Yossi Yungman.
Performing with the show in Belgrade a year later, he was invited by Serbian musician Misko Plavi to join his own project as lead singer, and Kahalani appeared in the “East Kissing West” concert. He stayed on, and, having become fascinated by Serbian Orthodox Church music, he began studying Serbian liturgy with singer Divna Petrovic. There, for the first time, he was intrigued enough by the music to want to study opera singing, and he returned to Israel to study countertenor voice for two years.
He intended to continue his studies in France but then discovered the West and North African music, which, he says, changed his life. “It opened my eyes and made me see the connection with blues/ jazz and let me understand the origin of it, understand where it all comes from,” he says. “I felt connected to it and it spoke to me.”
Getting together with guitar and oud player Alon Campino, who had introduced him to the world of music from North Africa and the Sahara, they formed the band, Desert Blues, performing for two years cover versions to Nubian, Gnawa, Tuareg, Saidi, Bambara songs of artists from the Sahara. Gradually, Kahalani began integrating traditional Yemenite songs as well as his own original songs written in Yemenite- Arabic. “From there, all avenues opened up to me,” he says.
After a chance encounter Idan Raichel, the internationally successful Israeli singer invited Kahalani, to join his group. Kahalani sang with Raichel for five years before starting to write his own music and finally setting out on his own. In 2009, together with Yisrael Borochov, a leader of the World Music scene in Israel, and jazz bassist Omer Avital, Kahalani put together the Debka Fantasia project, releasing an album that explored the connection between the old Hebrew pioneer songs with Arab and Bedouin music.
“This is where it all started from,” he says. “I have been influenced by my whole journey and this is where Yemen Blues originated.”
Forming the core of Yemen Blues together with Kahalani are percussionists Itamar Doari and Rony Iwryn, Yisrael Borochov’s trumpet-playing son, Itamar Borochov, and Omer Avital, who also serves as the musical director for the group.
Up on stage, Kahalani has fun with the audience, flirts with them, engages them, dances and smiles with them. He uses his voice to do amazing things, making sounds that seem to come from someone else in another place and another time.
Mixing Yemenite music with West African sounds and contemporary funk and mambo, the music moves from joyful and energetic to soulful ballads, Kahalani’s versatile voice climbing and descending the music scale. “Yemen Blues has been the most amazing thing that has happened to me,” he says, noting that the group’s second album is scheduled to be released by the end of the year.
The third of seven siblings, Kahalani’s traditional parents have been very supportive of his musical journey. “They are religious but are very supportive of what I do; but what is more important to them is the basis of who the person is,” he says.
Like his main performing influences, Brown and Prince, Kahalani is very aware of his image and the appearance he presents in his performances. “One of the things I love to do most is to perform and I invest time in that,” he says. “I am a person who loves fashion and the ‘look.’ It is important how I look and how I move and how I look on stage.”
This summer, the band will be performing a set of four concerts in China, where – strange as it may seem – it has a large fan base. “We were there last year and the people loved it,” says Kahalani. “Of course, the Chinese don’t react in the same way as the Israelis. They are not as free dancing in the aisles, but there are some who do. I don’t know their culture very well but they are more reserved, and we appreciate them being there for the music.” Yemen Blues will also be touring in the United States, from July 7-18, hitting Detroit, Boston and several cities in California, and returning for two concerts in St. Paul at the end of October.
The band also has many fans in Poland and Germany, and a following in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Egypt – places where the band can’t currently perform. But, says Kahalani, he hopes someday he will be able to perform there live.
Though a consummate performer, Kahalani hopes that listeners will also get the message of his music, which is most important of all, beyond the show performance. Translating the lyrics to one of his songs, Kahalani says, “It doesn’t matter where you come from, your language is my language, it doesn’t matter which god you pray to, the melody always comes from the heart, it is always coming from the heart.
“Even when people don’t understand the words, they still feel very connected to the music,” he continues. “That’s the beauty. It really shows – even though this sounds so banal – that people can identify with music. It can be an instrument of peace. It is very much beyond just entertainment. People listen to music and they understand and they connect to it in the strongest way. It shows that the basis of everything is people to people, above all and before politics and religion.
“No matter where we come from, we all have something in common, something that connects us. We all influence one another. That is something people have forgotten and when they listen to music, they remember. There are a lot of things that put bad energy out there. With my music, I want to push out the bad energy and bring in good energy. That’s what I want people to remember.”