The poet and musician Ziryab was one of the luminaries of southern Spain’s medieval Islamic period, particularly when it came to playing the lutelike oud. In this solo show from Silk Road Rising, writer-performer Ronnie Malley argues that the flowering of Ziryab’s art came about in part due to the confluence of cultures—Islamic, Christian, and Jewish—he encountered in ninth-century Andalusia. Malley, the child of Palestinian immigrants, links that earlier example of multiculturalism to his own upbringing on the city’s southwest side. The show’s first-person accounts are stirring and Malley is a skillful musician; in addition to singing and strumming the oud, he plays percussion and the electric guitar.
Malley leavens a potentially death-riddled mystery with an insouciant approach to anecdotes that anchors his performance in the earth of Chicago’s standup roots.
Malley’s performances on the oud and its descendants, the lute and the guitar, certainly drive home his point about music’s universal reach.
Malley richly regales us with songs that are both time trips and travelogues. His avocation is as religious as artistic. It links him in tolerance to the Abrahamic god of three religions and countless cultures. Malley connects us too. The result is wonderful.
