The best perfs were those that compromised least in terms of multicultural crossover. Haitian singer Emeline Michel cut a striking swath onstage as she laid into dark voudou percussion, her breathy contralto offering an otherworldly counterpoint to the distinctly earthy rhythms.
South African troubadour Vusi Mahlasela was similarly uncompromising, if considerably more spare in his delivery of acoustic paeans that spoke against apartheid and to the immutable spirit of his homeland. Mahlasela offered numerous between-song explanations of his compositions, but the raw power of his voice, which floated effortlessly from growl to falsetto, drove home their point well enough on its own.
The accordion-driven Forro in the Dark and fiddle-laced Dervish --- hailing, respectively, from Brazil and Ireland --- were bent on altering not only space but time, so heady were their evocations of ancestral sounds and specters.
The evening was not without its moments of fusion. Mercan Dede's Secret Tribe elicited chills by grafting traditional Sufi melodies onto a framework outlined by drones from both synthesizers and the native instruments. Susheela Raman chose to juxtapose rather than overlap, alternating between eerie vocal improvisation and Jill Scott (news)-style neo-soul.
Not all the cross-cultural pollination proved fruitful. France's Les Yeux Noirs ham-handedly forced Gypsy folk into a stodgy rock setting, while Lebanese oud player Marcel Khalife was undercut by a backing band, featuring two of his sons, that drifted too far into mainstream jazz.
Still, the seeming ease with which even GlobalFest's more difficult listening seemed to go down with a novice aud no doubt encouraged the show's producers and created a good many enthusiastic gatekeepers for wider auds down the road.
01/10/04 >> 
