Have been wanting to see Pharaoh’s Daughter for a long time and finally got a chance tonight at Joe’s Pub. The female-fronted octet features Basya Schecter on multi-lingual lyrics from the scriptures, the song of songs and other jewish-related sources. I had worked with her on Zorn’s vocal masada recorded Mycale (an accappella quartet also feat Ayelet Rose, Sophia Rei and Malika Zarra -the four of them just toured Israel until two days ago) and so I knew she had a very characteristic and beautiful vocal style. Supported by a killer band including Shanir Blumenkranz on bass, Yuval Lion on drums, Mathias Kunzli on percussions, Meg Okura on violin, a flute player, a guitar player and a keyboard player (had seen some of them with Roberto Rodriguez before but never met them before so don’t remember their names by heart like I do remember the names ofthe others, because I worked with all of them in the studio).
They all played beautifully and presented a vast material drawing including originals and non. The band was great and Basya sang and played well, in spite of the fact she was probably super jetlegged.
I’d recommend this group highly to anyone who wants to take an authentic and gorgeous musical trip through time and space, transcending political and religious beliefs, in search of the greater good through beautiful music (and tasty macaroons offered by the band in occasion of Passover). Sababa, shalom to ya’all!