Our first meeting took place at a Brazilian feijoada at Laura’s in Chelsea. A Flamenco guitarist’s nimble fingers plucked at his nylon strings and we all reclined about in the shadows, as if in an opium den. Suddenly, a piercing cry broke my repast and I looked up to see an imposing figure with high heeled black boots and tightly-curled dark maroon hair. She was singing in an unrecognizable language, which I learned from the others was Farsi. There was tenderness in her voice at first, but it became shrill and startling as she expressed loneliness and heartbreak in universal and intuitively understood tones, the tones of agony. She and the guitarist blended elements from the middle-east, Spain, and the Blues, when she started scatting. I’d never heard the like. This is Sholeh, and singing is only one of her hobbies; she’s actually a painter. (more…)
