Zera Vaughan
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Zera Vaughan

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"FEMINIST REVIEW"

When I saw the cover art of Zera Vaughan’s Back to the Roots, I was struck by the image of a dramatic-looking female ice dancer. Her body was painted shades of brown with ridges and lines of what looked like tree bark. I knew I was in for something expressive and heavy.

The first track, “Almaz,” is rich and bewitching. It leads off with a lovely moan. Vaughan’s voice is haunting and reminiscent of early Sarah McLachlan. As the tracks progresses, the swells of the new age and world influences wash over me. Traces of Indian, Eastern European and French music can be heard in the instrumentation. Some songs are sung in English, but most are in French.

On a few tracks, Vaughan pulls the listener along through a verse in one language and then the chorus in the other. “Sweet Home” is a pumping French song that makes you move and could easily become the album’s first single “The Crying Moon” winds into “The Moon Track,” closing the album and leaving the listener lost in an echoing trance. This collection of songs is a fusion of cultures that grow, curve and bend like a tall tree.

Review by Jill M O’Malley - FEMINIST REVIEW


"RAMBLES.Net"

This North African native mixes the old with the new to produce a world music album with a sound all its own. Born in Tunisia to an English painter father and a French ballerina mother, Zera Vaughan entered the Tunisia Music Conservatory at age 10 and followed it with entrance into the Paris Music Conservatory.

Zera's music does not fit into the typical mold of any particular style. While she sometimes sings in Hebrew and Arabic, her debut album Back to the Roots is sung in French and English to melodies that are contemporary, but with a distinctive traditional Middle Eastern sound. Mixing the music of her youth in North Africa with the music of today, Zera has returned to her musical roots. Her distinctive voice blends with the traditional sound to form a world music sound that reaches right down to your soul.

Back to the Roots is a collection of 11 original and cover tunes, but even on the cover tunes Zera makes them distinctly her own. Among the covers is a hauntingly beautiful rendition of the Sting song "Fragile" that leaves you wanting for more.

Zera and her family split their time between Paris and Los Angeles.
Review by: Sherill Fulghum - RAMBLES.Net


Discography

Vision" : KCRW
"Almaz" : released in a world music album:"salon oriental 2" released in usa, europe , asia, israel.
"Back To The Roots" 2006

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Bio

Zera Vaughan – Music Without Frontiers

Tunisian Born Singer/Songwriter Spans Cultures And Continents With
Back To The Roots

Zera Vaughan is an artist with a global outlook and a desire to make music without frontiers. Back To The Roots, her debut offering, is a perfect blend of North African Ethnic rhythms, European club beats and classic American pop balladry that honors the music’s ancient past while stepping boldly into the future. With her musical collaborators – producer and songwriter Amir Efrat and the French band W.S.L. – Vaughan invites us along for a journey that’s as spiritual as it is musical, with music that gently draws you deeper into its enigmatic spell with every listen.

“My name Zera, means seed in the ancient language,” Vaughan explains. “When you plant a seed in the soil, it becomes a tree. Imagine the potential power of that one seed. We all come from a seed and we all have that energy and power. I make music that’s relaxing, but it also speaks to another level of consciousness. I was born in Tunisia and raised between two cultures, the local and the European. My father loved American jazz, but the local people listened to Middle Eastern pop. I remember one hot summer night, when my dad played Ella Fitzgerald singing ‘The Moon.’ At the same time, there was traditional Tunisian music coming in the window from the street. To me, the mixture of the two seemed amazing and magical and that feeling never left me.”

That love of diverse cultures permeates every note of Back To The Roots, an album that dances sinuously from the exotically scented bazaars of North Africa, to the smoky jazz clubs of Paris and the chilled out club rooms of London and L. A. With the help of producer and songwriter Amir Efrat, whose desire to blend pop/electronica with Middle Eastern and world music styles matches her own, Vaughan has created an album that spans cultures and continents.

The production on Back To The Roots gives every track a glistening, wide-open aura, while Vaughan’s vocals have an ethereal presence that floats through the mix, imbuing the music with an ageless presence that’s both sensuous and spiritual. Randy Crawford’s “Almaz” opens with a wordless muezzin-like call honoring the unborn spirit. W.S.L. [Henri Deschamps, guitar; Francois Benichou and Amir Efrat, keys; Remy Leger and Vivi Rama, bass; J. C, Mott, drums and percussionist Benjy and Ahu Cansenven, lay down a tribal rhythm highlighted by synthesizer washes that mimic an Egyptian string orchestra, while Vaughan delivers a vocal that blends R&B and middle-eastern inflections. “Almaz is the Ethiopian word for diamond, which symbolizes purity,” Vaughan explains. “I used to sing this song all the time, hearing African drums and percussion in my head. I did this track live with the band.” “The Crying Moon” has one of the album’s most haunting melodies and a bravura vocal performance. It’s a pop tune that blends a rock backbeat, oriental percussion and Efrat’s multi-layered keyboard work to create a delirious, swirling soundscape. “The moon is deeply in love with the sun, but he’s too busy taking care of the earth and humanity to shine for her,” Vaughan says. “She changes to catch the sun’s attention, but the earth has life and the moon has none. The beat of the song is the rhythm of the heartbeat, our connection to the natural world. Humans are often too busy to notice the natural world; this song is a reminder to pay attention to the beauty that always surrounds us.” “Mona Lisa” is a straightforward rock ballad with some tasty lead guitar work by Simone Sello. “It’s another song about the everyday mysteries we take for granted,” Vaughan says. “Simon’s guitar gives the tune some minor key drama.” “J’ai (I Have)” bounces along on a jaunty Oriental rhythm track. It features a playful vocal from Vaughan and the ethnic flute work of Fred Selden, who lays down a solo that sounds both Japanese and Native American. “This Time” is a pop confection, a duet with singer/songwriter Sirsa Shekim. Efrat lays down a subtle North African pulse while Vaughan and Shekim trade vocals, Shekim in English and Vaughan in French, their voices pushing and pulling each other, creating a delicious tension before finally blending into a singular melancholy sound full of longing and regret.

The strikingly original sound of Back To The Roots sounds effortless, but its freewheeling, adventurous sound has taken a lifetime to achieve. Zera Vaughan always wanted to sing and act, even as a child. When she was ten, her parents enrolled her in the Tunisian Music Conservatory. “They sent me to study dance and classical [European] music, but I was listening to ethnic music and hung out with the students and teachers. We didn’t speak the same language, their French was as bad as my Tunisian, but we communicated musically. They taught me Malouf, the original music brought over by the Spanish immigrants that were chased from their country by the inquisition [in the