The Jazz Club in my village withered on the vine, but a couple of residents meet for a Listening Pleasure session once a month or so. The topic this month is ‘Fruit’. A few songs came to mind immediately, a few more came up in searches of my music collection, and then I came across a band called Rubi Ate the Fig. They were new to me, sounded interesting, and have just released an album called Desert Electric.

They are a fairly straightforward rock outfit, but with fusion and Middle Eastern overtones. Their website describes their style as:

“Led Zeppelin and Mahavishnu traveling through the Desert – stopping to have tea with Grace Slick”

And, frankly, I couldn’t have put it better myself.

The band was first put together in 2013 by guitarist, singer and composer, Sharon Eliashar. She was born in Jerusalem, lives in California, and has gathered her band members from across America and Eurasia.

Eliashar cites Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, Weather Report and The Police as her personal influences. If she wants to emulate them, she has set herself very high aspirations indeed. The other band members are not big names themselves, but they have very respectable connections. The website’s Press page mentions work with: George Harrison, Oingo Boingo, System of a Down, Taj Mahal, Jerry Harrison (of Talking Heads), and jazz greats Phil Wood and Steve Gadd. That all suggests a breadth of styles that warms the cockles of Crotchety Man’s heart.

And the album doesn’t disappoint in the slightest. It is full of expertly crafted rock songs with an overlay of the exotic sounds of middle eastern deserts. Conjuring up images of shifting sands, camel trains, oases, and pyramids, it is the music of legends and fables. And a glowing testament to the talents of both the composer and the producer.

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In an interview for an American art and culture website, Eliashar refuses to explain where the band’s name came from, hinting only that it alludes to an alternative to the biblical story of Eve. Other sources suggest that the fig is the forbidden fruit that brings pain and suffering into the world. Forbidden it may have been in the Garden of Eden, but it brings a tasteful morsel to the Fruit basket on this month’s Listening Pleasure playlist.