Maryem with Omneya

When the east meets the west, mixed with a little jazz, salsa, Arabic and East African, the result is Mernie!

Mernie! is a 10-piece, Toronto-based, world music mixture of friends and collaborators, led by Maryem and Ernie Tollar.

Just returning from their seven-week tour travelling from Atlantic to Pacific Canada, Mernie! set Toronto on a world trip at their CD release concert at the Glenn Gould Studio on Nov. 29.

The band produces a sound that takes on many cultural inspirations but mostly from their 11-month old daughter Omneya. The result is music without borders or stereotypes.

Ernie Tollar on the soprano saxophone

"The diversity in the music we draw from the group; for example Rich our bass player his background is Jamaican, and Rick who plays the dumbek and congas is Latin. Maryem studied Arabic music and I studied jazz, Indian and Arabic," said Ernie Tollar.

The journey that this diverse group of ten takes us started in Arabic with Irroh, a song that speaks of love and guilt but by the end of the first half of the concert, Mernie! took the audience to Africa with a Jamaican backdrop singing Malaika - a beautiful Swahili love song that was set to a reggae beat.

Right before the end of the first half, the band performed its world premiere Marrakesh set to Arabic and French lyrics - a song inspired by an all-woman Moroccan group and with audience participation of clapping and grooving.

The show introduced one more performer to the stage in the form of Tollar and Maryem's daughter Omenya, whom performed a traditional Bulgarian song named Tri mi Zvezdo.

	The fantastic, and very pregnant Roula Said

One of highlights of the night was the fantastic belly dancing of the very pregnant Roula Said, dancing to a traditional Ladino song named Por Alli Paso Un Caballero.

"Roula has more of a concept, more inspired by dancing about something that moves her…creatively she comes from many dimensions," said Tollar.

The show ended with a song named after the main inspiration Omneya.

"This was my first time hearing them and it was really involved and very proficient with all the different instruments. As a musician myself, I really enjoyed it," said Gavin Dianda, keyboardist of local pop act The Flashing Lights, after watching the concert.

Throughout the night, Tollar and several other band members played various instruments as diverse as the band. Tollar played several different woodwinds as well as the soprano saxophone.

Some of the other band members played instruments as varied as the music itself. For instance, Levon Ichkhanian played the oud and the guitar, Debashis Sinha played the riqq and percussion, and Rick Lazar played the congas and the dumbek.

The talents are reflected in the music, so much so that they set a William Blake poem to a Mid-western melody called Infant Child. Since their music comes from dreams, love stories births and life, Mernie! hopes to continue making their music, and their new found fans hope for the same.

- Photographs by Bouke Salverda

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