Traveling man
DJ Cheb i Sabbah shares worlds of music.

By Peter Nicholson

LOWER HAIGHT. Home to blond, dreadlocked trust-fundafarians, aloof record store clerks, and British accents, both real and assumed. And, in the past decade, more DJs than imaginable. The Top and Nickie's BBQ have both seen more club nights come and go than a tweaker has seen sunrises. The Top, however, will always have a special place in my heart because I got my nose broken there one night way back when. (It was a sucker punch – I have witnesses.) The wanna-be Mike Tyson had just been kicked out of Nickie's, proof that, despite its bridge-and-tunnel-Saturday-night reputation, Nickie's has always drawn a lively crowd. Holding down the far-from-glamorous Tuesday-night slot for, count them, 13 years, is Cheb i Sabbah. Somehow I doubt my pal with the killer right hook had been checking out Arabia Africa Asia (now called Outernational Mix), because Cheb i's selections are not exactly best suited for smoking a $20 solid and punching the next stranger you see. As befits a man who has been using records to entrance and illuminate for more than 35 years, Cheb i's taste is a little more refined.

Not to say that his music doesn't inspire intense emotion. The joy rising off the dance floor on a recent night reflected both Cheb i's secure grasp of DJ skills and his passion for the music. While Nickie's packed crowd was bumping to a wide palette of dance music from around the globe, Cheb i's studio efforts have been more introspective and narrower in focus, yet equally capable of transporting the listener. Wonder, rapture, bliss – I've also felt more than a touch of bewilderment while listening to Krishna Lila, the last installment in his trilogy of artist albums for Six Degrees.

Cheb i produces albums performed by master musicians evoking singular elements of brilliance, and he brings them together to create a sonic prayer. Though each player may not worship the same deities, they search together for the divine. Part of my awe arises from the realization that this musical shrine is composed of contours and embellishments I've never examined or appreciated. Mridangam drum, Saraswati vina, Vedic chanting – these aren't variations on the familiar but are genuinely new experiences.

But it's really only new to me – the individual elements of Cheb i's music are ancient. Not old like loops recycled from the '80s, but old like hundreds and hundreds of years old. Vedic chanting comes from the Indian Vedas, the oldest basic Hindu scriptures, and has been practiced for centuries.

Before Cheb i's set that night we sipped Arabic coffee scented with cardamom while sitting on the floor of his apartment in the Mission, and I confessed to him that I feel more than a little ridiculous crowing about these "new" sounds I have "discovered."

"Well," Cheb i said with a chuckle as he paused to light his fourth or fifth clove cigarette, "that's the idea: to introduce the elements. Then, if you like them, you are free to explore even more." But he stopped short of claiming any role as a teacher and emphasized that he is constantly studying and learning more about music himself.

This humility is characteristic of Cheb i, who has worked with some of the world's greatest musicians and just returned from a weeklong gig in Moscow. While Cheb i has the relaxed manner of a man secure and experienced in his chosen discipline (he's 54 and has been playing records since he was a teenager), he never comes across as jaded and is constantly flashing a genuine grin. Born to Berber Jews in Algeria, Cheb i began spinning American soul in Parisian discotheques in 1964. He eventually hooked up with experimental theater troupe the Living Theatre, whose Julian Beck he cites as one of his primary artistic influences, alongside jazz trumpeter Don Cherry. When Cheb i arrived in San Francisco in the '80s to raise his two children, he started an acting group called Tribal Warning Theater but eventually became disillusioned with the difficulties of working with ill-prepared fellow actors. So his emphasis switched back to DJing and eventually to production, including work for labels such as Asphodel, Triloka, and Sub Rosa. He also has stayed busy as a promoter, with more than 50 events to his name, all financed by a well-worn set of credit cards. His first artist album for Six Degrees, Shri Durga was released in 1999 to great acclaim, though Maha Maya, an album of Shri Durga songs remixed by State of Bengal, Fun'Da'Mental, and others, may have reached a broader audience, owing to its emphasis on Western dance floor friendliness.

Krishna Lila is an album of devotional music split into two sections that represent the different musical traditions of northern and southern India. It has a slightly warmer, more immediate feeling than Shri Durga, whose song structures are more formal. "Shri Durga was based on ragas more strictly, whereas this album was based on what's known as bhajans, which are devotional songs that are based on ragas," he said. "But they're much lighter, they're shorter, and they have a lot of lyrics. They're more accessible, and the lyrics are more known by people."

When I mentioned the strong feelings of belief and faith that permeate Krishna Lila, Cheb i spoke of always being careful. "With the subject matter, you can't take it lightly. So my position is always hoping that everything in there is OK so it doesn't offend. When you say faith – me, I associate it more with trust. Because the content and the way it's being sung and played is the right thing, and all I have to do is my part."

Sometimes Cheb i's part is to do nothing, as on the songs from Krishna Lila where he is invisible, letting the musicians he has assembled perform their art. This art is amazing, even to the novice listener, who may only recognize Bill Laswell on bass and have no knowledge of percussionist and Cheb i labelmate Karsh Kale's accomplished debut, Realize, or the respect awarded to the brothers K. Sridhar and K. Shivakumar on sarod and violin. At other times on this album Cheb i's touch is more noticeable, as he layers subtle effects and looped beats through the ebb and flow of voice and instruments. His production really only takes center stage on "Raja Vedulu," where a deep breakbeat and echo effects accompany dizzying tablas.

Though Cheb i did play Krishna Lila's opening track, the majestic "Narajanma Bandage," which pairs the floating vocals of Baby Seeram singing in Kannada over Laswell's sinuous bass, the driving beat of "Raja Vedulu" is more in keeping with the majority of his set at Nickie's following our conversation. Tuesday clubs (if anyone shows up) tend to draw a more devoted crowd, and Cheb i's Outernational Mix is no exception. When we arrived at 10 p.m., having been delivered by his son Elijah, Nickie's was empty save for a few people propping up the bar. By 11 the club was packed with a boisterous, friendly crowd enthusiastically getting down to a set that ranged from the widely known Talvin Singh to Punjabi songs and an Algerian tune that was instantly recognized by the dancers, who stomped and waved their hands in joy.

Many promoters claim to have a diverse crowd, but the crew at Outernational was easily the most varied I have ever seen – from flamboyant queens to Punjabis in turbans to standard-issue skinny, white club girls, there was no evident grouping along lines of ethnicity or religion. I chatted with an organic kava kava farmer from Oregon and a friend of Elijah's who is studying at City College to be a firefighter. There was a sense that this night was part of something much bigger than just the latest dance music trend, a global give-and-take completely different from the hegemony of corporate globalization. The crowd was good-humored (definitely no broken noses) and tension-free.

Cheb i is definitely aware, though typically humble, of the positive role he can play in bringing together people of traditionally antagonistic cultures. "I think we are not going to see [resolution] ourselves, but our children are going to manage it or not. A Hindu Indian or a Muslim Pakistani, when they're on the dance floor [in the West] or go to shop at one another's store, they don't have this thing of Kashmir – it doesn't exist to them."

Cheb i Sabbah 'Krishna Lila' CD-release party. Sat/8, 9 p.m.-2 a.m., Studio Z, 314 11th St., S.F. $12. (415) 789-8470. Outernational Mix. Tuesdays, 9 p.m.-2 a.m., Nickie's BBQ, 460 Haight, S.F. $5. (415) 621-6508. For more information go to www.chebisabbah.com.