A trio with a core member who is a belly dancer and with electric saz, violin and a toy piano in their instrumental arsenal will most certainly take you into uncharted musical territory. Beats Antique stirs Middle Eastern grooves, flamenco, French Hot Club jazz, Balkan wedding music, hip hop and dub reggae. Oh, about that belly dancer. That’s Zöe Jakes who also serves as a composer, arranger and percussionist. In fact, her hip shaking is how Beats Antique came to be. Jakes met band mate David Santori while she was in a show called Belly Dance Superstars, a gyrating extravaganza a la River Dance. The multi-instrumentalist Santori (violin, guitar, Turkish saz) had already migrated from garage band thrasher to world music explorer when he was invited by the show’s producer, Miles Copeland, to record some belly dance music. Santori made a counter suggestion. “How about Jakes and I fuse experimental electronic music with trad belly dance tunes?” They added drummer and toy piano player ‘Sidecar’ Tommy Cappel to round out the trio for their debut recording Tribal Derivations, followed by festival and concert appearances around the world. A Beats Antique show is a must-see, combining world spinning music with exotic costumed jingly jangly dance moves for a truly sensational, multi-sensory experience.
Biography by Eric Rosenbaum