Cultural fusion inspires Raquy Danziger and the Cavemen

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      If the reports of anti-western sentiment in the Muslim world were all true, Raquy Danziger would need an armed guard whenever she headed off on one of her frequent jaunts to the Middle East. After all, she's everything the stereotypical Muslim fundamentalist should love to hate: a liberated young American woman of Jewish descent.

      On the line from her Brooklyn home, Danziger admits that in “sexually repressed” Egypt, at least, she does attract a degree of unwanted attention on the street. More often, however, she meets with respect and generous hospitality, thanks to her facility on the dumbek, the goblet-shaped hand drum that's the primary percussion instrument in the Arabic world.

      “Everyone that I'm collaborating with in the Middle East is Muslim, a religious Muslim,” she explains. “For instance, Said El Artist is the dumbek superstar of Egypt. He has a whole drumming orchestra, and pretty much every year, once or twice I go over there and perform as a soloist and with his troupe. It's a huge honour, and I get to play a duet with him. But everyone in that band is a pretty religious Muslim. We take breaks from rehearsal so that they can pray and all that stuff, and they're very, very welcoming to me, and loving and appreciative. It's just beautiful how music can bring all these different people together.”

      Sometimes, Danziger adds, the gentle clashing of cultures makes for some surprising scenes. “When I'm studying in Turkey with my teacher Bí¼nyamin Olguncan, I'll usually have my yoga mat with me,” she says, laughing. “So I'll be doing my yoga and then he'll use my yoga mat to pray. It's kind of a funny dynamic.”

      Danziger's full of amusing stories about her Middle Eastern travels, and her adventurous spirit carries over into the hybrid music that she makes with her somewhat strangely named percussion duo, Raquy and the Cavemen. The project began when she and her fellow drummer Liron Peled—then husband and wife—were jamming together at home.

      “I was playing traditional Middle Eastern music and he was playing hard-core rock music, but we'd lived together for four years and hadn't played together at all,” she says. “One day we just started playing together, though, and it was like ”˜Wow, this kind of works!' So we just started making this music that fuses the two styles. It just happened really organically, but everyone's reaction to our music was positive, so we thought, ”˜Well, this is working; let's do more.'”

      Danziger plays dumbek and kamanche, an Iranian relative of the violin; Peled's home-built drum kit allows him to play dumbek, tambourine, and frame drum simultaneously, using foot pedals and his hands. Their sound is groove-heavy and hypnotic—and probably the best testament to its power is that both Danziger and Peled love working together, even after their divorce.

      “Breaking up kind of put our relationship through this filter, and only the good things came out,” says the percussion virtuoso. “So now we just have a blast—and we're best friends.”

      Raquy and the Cavemen play St. James Hall next Thursday (April 29).

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