Idan Raichel: Music with meaning

For Israeli superstar Idan Raichel, sometimes it’s not the musical notes that matter most; it’s what happens in between.

Such is the case when a Jewish singer-songwriter teams up with a Muslim guitarist — in this case, Vieux Farka Touré, from the West African country of Mali.

“What is important for us, between the jams, when we are talking, is to create a dialogue, to create a bridge, between different cultures,” Raichel said in an email interview while on tour. “Because I can think one thing, and Farka can think another thing, and maybe a friend of Farka from Mali can think a third opinion. So what is really important is not the opinions itself but the ability to create a dialogue in times when sometimes the leaders, the political leaders, are failing, even on this.”

Touré agreed that dialogue is key to overcoming differences, saying in a Web video: “He comes from Israel, he’s Jewish. I come from Mali, I’m Muslim. It shows at a certain point there are no real differences between people.”

The duo and the rest of their band, who together comprise The Touré-Raichel Collective, will appear Nov. 7 at the Valley Performing Arts Center at California State University, Northridge, (CSUN) in support of their recently released album, “The Paris Session” (Cumbancha), a follow-up to the group’s 2012 debut, “The Tel Aviv Session.”

While the album’s press materials describe it as apolitical, Raichel, 37, said he hopes listeners take as much inspiration from an Israeli Jew working closely with a Muslim as Raichel did from the process of working with Touré.

The professional relationship between the two began with a serendipitous meeting at an airport in Berlin in 2008. It helped that Raichel was already a fan of the music of Touré’s father, Ali Farka Touré. (The latest album features a cover of one of the elder Touré’s songs, “Diaraby.”) There was immediate chemistry, which resulted in the album that was recorded in Tel Aviv.

The plan was to record the follow-up in Mali, but “logistics, cost and security” prevented that from happening, according to press materials. The artists met in France instead and recorded the album over the course of three days in a studio outside of Paris. An array of musicians, including Israeli trumpeter Niv Toar and Malian singer Seckouba Diabate, appear on the 14-track album.

Highlights abound. Toar, who studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and was granted a musician’s status in the Israel Defense Forces that allowed him to hone his craft and tour at the same time as serving, appears on the album opener, “From End to End.” Touré’s trippy acoustic guitar-plucking gives way to Toar’s jazzy blows — the African bush meets Miles Davis. Around the one-minute mark, Raichel joins in with warm piano playing.

The only song on the album with an English title, “From End to End,” gives way to another all-instrumental track, “Tidhar.” Clickity-clack percussion blends with an urgent-sounding guitar riff from Touré that propels the song forward and gives it rapid momentum. Again, Raichel shows off his piano skills.

Raichel lends his voice to “Hodu” (Hebrew for “give praise”), the album’s third track, offering Hebrew lyrics and fuzzy, meditative vocals. These are complemented by Touré, singing in Songhai.

The pair’s collaboration is the latest in a string of successful career moves by Raichel encouraging multicultural understanding. Over the course of a more than decade-long career, Raichel, a vocalist and pianist, has become something of a musical sensation in Israel. He is known for incorporating Ethiopian sounds into his music and for featuring vocals in multiple languages, including Hebrew and Arabic.

In 2002, the then-dreadlocked performer released the song “Bo’ee” (Come With Me). (Raichel cut his trademark locks about a year ago and now rocks a shaved head that he often covers in a towering head-wrap.) The song, which Raichel recorded under the name The Idan Raichel Project, received airplay on Israeli radio. The Idan Raichel Project had its first hit, and, one month later, released its eponymous debut album.

Raichel began performing in the United States and reaching out to American fans in 2005. He has done shows throughout the U.S., Mexico, Ethiopia and Europe and performed at the Nobel Peace Prize awards ceremony in Oslo, Norway, in 2012.

Most recently, Raichel joined Palestinian singer Ali Amir-Kanoon and Grammy-winning singer Alicia Keys on Sept. 27 for a performance that featured the trio performing Keys’ latest single, the hopeful anthem “We Are Here,” at the 2014 Global Citizen Festival in New York’s Central Park.

“Let’s talk about Gaza / Let’s talk about, let’s talk about Israel / Cause right now it is real … / Our souls are brought together, so we can love each other / Brother / We are here.”

Raichel said he believes the song sent a message that society needs to hear, that it “opened people’s minds and hearts to their neighbors around the world.”

The Israeli megastar doesn’t limit his activities to music. The performer is a supporter of the charity Save a Child’s Heart, an Israeli-based organization that offers free open-heart surgery on children from developing countries, including Gaza and the West Bank. It also trains doctors from across the globe to perform life-saving surgeries.

Despite his success, Raichel said he is still grappling with the challenges of playing in the U.S. where his songs aren’t as well known as in his homeland. He has played in Los Angeles before, including at the Israeli American Council’s Celebrate Israel festival last May, and he expressed great admiration for the local music scene.

“L.A. is a musical center, one of the biggest in the world and one of the most important in the world,” he said. “Also, the audience is very open-minded to sounds and music from different parts of the world.

“The main difference [between playing in Los Angeles and performing in Tel Aviv] is that in Israel, when I’m playing, the songs are considered to be hits. When I’m playing outside of Israel, it’s more of an authentic sound, and people would define it not as mainstream music but as world music, and I really appreciate that people are taking an afternoon, an evening, [hiring] a babysitter, taking their lady or taking their man and coming to experience and give music from different parts of the world a chance.”

For more information about the upcoming Touré-Raichel Collective performance at the Valley Performing Arts Center at CSUN, visit http://www.valleyperformingartscenter.org/calendar/the-toure-raichel-collective/