About Malika Zarra…

Biography

Moroccan
world 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
and is now a much-in-demand headliner at nightclubs and festivals the world
over.

Malika was born in Southern Morocco, in a little village called Ouled Teima. Her
father’s family was originally from Smara, an oasis just off the Sahara, while
her mother was a Berber from the High Atlas. During her early childhood, there
was always music and dancing in the house and Malika sang almost from babyhood.
After her family emigrated to a suburb of Paris, she found herself straddling
two very different societies. I had to be French at school yet retain my
Moroccan cultural heritage at home, she recalls, Like many immigrant children, I
learned to switch quickly between the two. It was hard but brought me a lot of
good things too.

Malika’s interest in music led her to take up the clarinet in grade school.
Meanwhile, she was being exposed to a wide variety of musical styles, she cites
fellow Moroccan Chiha Hamdaouia, the Lebanese-born, Egyptian-based ud virtuoso/composer Farid el Atrache, and Algerian-French singer Warda (Al-Jazairia)
as major influences. She also absorbed albums by Ella Fitzgerald, Bobby McFerrin,
Thelonious Monk, Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin. When I decided to learn
singing, I started with jazz because I was attracted by the improvisation, which
is also important in Arabic music, she says. Although her family was not in
favor of her pursuing a musical career, Malika nonetheless attended classes at
conservatories and jazz academies at Tours and Marseille and studied privately
with Sarah Lazarus and Francoise Galais.

During her apprentice phase, during which she became in fixture in France and on
the Paris scene, Malika performed at a variety of well-known clubs and events,
including Festival L’esprit Jazz de St Germain, Sunside, Baiser Sale, Hot
Brass, Espace Julien, Pelle Mele and Cite de la Musique. In the beginning, she interpreted classic material
strictly in the original languages — then a breakthrough occurred. When I
started to sing in Arabic, writing new lyrics for jazz standards, I found that
people reacted really strongly. There is always more emotion when you sing in
your own language because your feelings are more intense. As a composer, the
process was similar ; asked why and when she began writing her own songs, she
says impishly, After getting tired of forgetting English lyrics !





An early visit to New York made a strong impression on her, I came the
first time in 1996. It was an amazing experience. I felt that I could be more
myself and learn a lot of things, musically and as a human being. In 2004,
Malika decided to relocate to New York City. Having crafted a repertoire that
incorporated her native Berber, Gnawa (a percussive form of
religious trance music) and Shaabi (Arabic working class blues)
heritages, the intellectual elegance of French pop, plus freewheeling jazz
rhythms and techniques, her reputation as a solo act began to grow. Malika’s
vocal versatility led to invitations to participate in a wide variety of
projects, including house, dance, gospel, funk and African music, and kept her
busy as a session and back-up singer.

Malika eventually recorded and/or sat in with Tommy Campbell, Makoto
Ozone, Will Calhoun, Lonnie Plaxico, Andy Milne, Michael Cain, Jason
Lindner, Omer Avital, Brad Jones, James Hurt, Jacques Schwarz-Bart,
Keith Carlock, David Gilmore, Aaron Heick, Rufus Capadoccia, Francis
M_Bappe, Miles Griffith, Harvie S, Kenny Davis, Jerome Harris, Brahim
Fribgane, Francis Jacob, Mamadou Ba, Harvey Wirht, Manu Koch, Gretchen
Parlato, Sachal Vasandani and many others. Among the venues she has
graced are the Carnegie Hall, the London Jazz Festival, the Festival du
Monde Arabe, the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival, French Embassy in
Washington DC, Brooklyn Maqam festival, JOE’S PUB, SOB’s, the Jazz
Festival at Untermeyer Park, Smoke Jazz Club, Europa Club, Enzo’s Jazz
Club, Riverbank State Park, Zinc Bar Jazz Club, Knitting Factory,
Makor, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Zipper Factory
Theater, Wango/Africa Rising NGO`S, Ballatou Montreal, Chorus Jazz
club, Porgy & Bess Jazz club, Domicil jazz club, WDR 3 (German
Radio).

Malika’s debut solo album “On the Ebony Road” (2006), reveals
a firm grasp of a richly diverse bouquet of references, fusing Orient and
Occident, East and West, into a lively, sensual, fresh, and deeply poem of
inclusion. Working with some of the finest international jazz players now
active, she is in her element as bandleader and collaborator, at once creating a
new vocabulary and intuitively going with the flow. She is well aware that in
the USA, there is still another set of realities, every bit as complex as those
she experienced in France, and that it’s not always easy to get past fear and
prejudice. However, she remains upbeat and confident of her ability to reach out
with her voice and heart. We all need to get just a little bit interested in
other cultures.