Playing Time – 45:54 -- While technical proficiency and talent are vital to a musician’s success, it is one’s personal passion for artistic creation that elevates and transports messages to the hearts of others. Zera Vaughan has a passion for songwriting and singing, in both French and English. This engaging disc provides ample proof of her transcendent and sensuous emotional electricity. Instead of calling the album “Back to the Roots,” it would’ve made more sense to me if an oxymoron had been used to call it “Forward to the Roots” to emphasize her contemporary world/pop/electro approach that also acknowledges her African and European influences.

Born to an English painter and French ballet dancer, Zera Vaughan was raised in Tunisia, North Africa and attended the Tunisian Music Conservatory.  That country’s traditional music includes malouf, imported from Andalusia after the Spanish conquest in the 15th century.  While such musical roots from Spain and Portugal don’t manifest themselves heavily in Zera’s world music with its electronic, synthesized and rhythmic grooves, I’m certain that they played a part in the musical fusion that she’s concocted. After high school, Zera studied at the Paris Music Conservatory, and she appeared regularly at lounges throughout the city. Her roots also can be traced to the influences of trip-hop music that she was exposed to in the U.K. That genre takes listeners on a hip-hop trip with synth’ed sounds, samples, loops, and sound effects. Now making her home between Los Angeles and Paris, Zera Vaughan is a globetrekker with a worldly, sophisticated vision for her music. The international appeal of her music is that it has positive energy for humankind. 

The soundscapes are thoughtfully layered with smooth vocals (although occasionally a little too restrained, reverberated or distant), guitar, keys, bass and percussion. While some synthesized fill is overbearing, it can have the affect of comforting warmth that wraps Zera’s mesmerizing voice like a quilt. Reworked versions of material from Randy Crawford (“Almaz”), Sting (“Fragile”), and Eddy Marney/Jean Michel-Braque (“Voir”) juxtaposes nicely with her own original material. I particularly enjoyed “This Time,” that is a bilingual rendition with vocalist Sirsa Shekim’s assistance. ‘The Crying Moon” also features Kyle Pucci’s backing vocals in a selection that is well-executed with Simone Sello’s guitar and Ahu Cansenven’s dumbek embellishing the arrangement. Much of the music was written by Zera in collaboration with Amir Efrat, a talented keyboardist/programmer/producer who has studied composition, arranging, piano performance and music synthesis in Israel, New York and Boston before his touring with “Ishtar” and relocating to Los Angeles about 2002. Amir certainly had a strong hand in helping to define and present Zera Vaughan’s creatively personalized vocalizing that blends world electronic music with jazz, funk and pop sensibilities. While some of the lyrics stimulate one’s curiosity, the underlying passion of “Back to the Roots” is revealed in varying degrees throughout the total set rather than in one blazing burst of energy. (Joe Ross, Roseburg, OR.)
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i recive the CD very speed and with no problems          COOL
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I admit this is not the type of  music I usualy listen to, yet  I do have a soft spot for beauty and so I had to buy this CD. The music is so pure, and very vivid and colourful. The vocals  are as if an angel sings your fears away and bring peace to your soul and mind. I recommend this release to anyone. At least anyone that knows good music.
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Zera Vaughan was the CD I was least sure about in my order of 3 albums from CD baby, and one of the chief reasons I bought it was a friend who had helped listen to it was estatic about it. I'm glad I had such good tastes with me, for the CD turned out to be my absolute favorite of the three, and easily one of my favorite albums in my collection itself.


She has a lovely mixture of contempory and past (It seems chiefly contemporary with influences of the past, instead of the opposite) which can be so rare in a genre filled with such attempts. The variations of french & english vocals and instrumental tracks keep you on your toes and provide a fresh feeling that only gets a -tad- stagnant around 7-9 (To me at least, because each song is sung in french). 

Almaz (1), Love song (2) and ESPECIALLY The Crying Moon (10) are my favorites of this album. Zera Vaughan has a voice as transcendent as her beauty, and is surely worth the purchase. I just hope she will produce a new album soon!
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