ALIAH SELAH was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona where at 7, she started piano lessons but then at 9 opted out of lessons - to instead secretly keep playing the piano and finding her own songs. All her childhood she was performing - as young as 5 in recitals - yet it was at 3 in Creative Dance classes that birthed a love of form and shapes in the air making dance and that lead to endless recitals from ballet, tap, and jazz class. This lead to singing, dancing, and acting regularly in musical comedies and Aliah loved making people laugh. She was naturally funny and when she got older even at times the class clown - when the teacher was cool - she learned to be helpful with comedy - to use it to lighten the mood at the right moment as she did at home.

Aliah's first role model was her bohemian art teacher who would take out her guitar and play folkrock songs at the end of each art class. Aliah would go talk to her about her dreams that were vivid and symbolic. She got Aliah drawing and writing poems. She told her that she was an artist... and to pour all her sensitivity into her art. At a certain point it was more genuine for her to sing from a deeper place than the musical comedy stylings she had been doing growing up... and she sought to find her own voice as a folkrock singer-songwriter.

This realization of her path caused her to change deeply inside - she became a pacifist, and a vegetarian, and started drawing and playing music all the time. She would draw while she listened to singer-songwriters... like Carol King's TAPESTRY, and Joni Mitchell's CLOUDS. She inspired her sister who started writing great songs on guitar and the two performed as a duo for a while.

In High School she was known for her conceptual dances that she was choreographing to FRANK ZAPPA, YES, and PINK FLOYD songs. When she choreographed PINK FLOYD'S Dark Side Of The Moon - "Time" - it was described by her teachers as "poetry in motion" and she began to be seen in a new light as the photographer of yearbook printed this hauntingly cool solo dance picture that had somehow - in a spontaneous instant - captured her spark.

She focused on being healthy because she knew she would need to be - to do all that she wanted to do with her life. This was a choice she made on her own. She was the only one among her friends - or really among anyone she knew - who loved to eat healthy and did so willingly because it made her body feel good and helped her to dance more fully and feel better.

#1 LIFE CHOICE: Self Care & Living Healthy are foundations to any dream.

She continued to be inspired by the depth of messages solidified in the progressive rock songs she was choreographing and dancing to. This inspired her to continue to write her own poetry. It became a way for her to look at everything that happens in life - in a new light. Finding what was real - and discovering how to express it in her poetry that she would take to the piano and just see what comes out. By studying the songs that touched her deeply she learned so much about life and understood how "mistakes" helped her to learn from everything that happens. It was wonderful what was happening to her inside but for a while she kept it to herself.

Aliah's songwriting awakening...

One day... Aliah dared to share a few of her intimate songs on piano with her high school chorus teacher after school. As a songwriter himself, he was blown away and began encouraging her singing & songwriting. He was so moved with how deeply she looked into things with her poetic lyrics. Yet mostly, how she let every experience inspire a poem that lead to a song about something she learned - from each experience.

He told her to save all her poetry for future songs. So she kept her poems a secret “in a shoe box under her bed” as referred to in the chorus of the title track “Shades Of Images”.

The chorus of
"Shades Of Images"
was in that Shoe box.

   "Shapes taking form,
and forms making sense,
senses getting felt -
feeling taking shape in Shades of Images
inspired by... mistakes."

In talking about her early years
of development Aliah says,
"I am eternally grateful to the
artists and teachers
who taught me to see and shape...
the invisible.

 

#2 LIFE CHOICE: There are no mistakes... everything is how we respond to what happens - and making the best of it - this is how to see an invisible dream come alive.

In her singing studies she learned to sing the gospel wailings of "The Great Gig In The Sky" note per note - off of PINK FLOYD's Dark Side Of The Moon. She was mesmerized by how much emotion was conveyed without any words and knew that was the deep place that she was seeking to sing from. To Aliah, it was more than just music - it was a quest for the real authentic spirit of social justice and peace activism, while unfolding the mystery of real love and revealing another angle into life's deeper understandings. She had played solo piano since 7 then... at 15 - her vision of a band came to her - as she picked up the sax.

Aliah's rock sax awakening...

Aliah's new best friend was Danena,
a bass player & totally crazy fun,
rock inspired lady who was
totally focused on her dream of rock.

Danena's brother Don - who also loved rock
later became Aliah's boyfriend.

One day, after Aliah found Don's sax
collecting dust up in his closet.
He looked at her excitement and said,
"A girl play sax, never!"
That was it - the sax was coming down
and she was gonna prove him wrong.
He said if she learned to play it,
he'd give it to her.

So at 15, in the middle of sophomore year,
she switched her theater class
for band class and started playing sax
by jamming to the radio.

By the age of 16, she was playing Sax in the
Phoenix College Jazz Band
and he gave her the sax.

Danena & Don helped her to believe in her own dream of rock
through helping her to see that the "you can do it" attitude
found in the passion of rock music.
And how that was just what she needed to go inside and pull out
what was real - so she could
inspire others to do the same.

CHECK OUT ALIAH PLAYING SAX ON SONGS:
"Fridge Poetry" & "Star Child" off the
Living In The Shade CD that will be featured
in the Rockaholix movie.

Aliah's courage to perform her own songs paid off big time when she was playing at an Arizona Singer Songwriter's Showcase and the host was a popular Radio DJ who called her "The next Joni Mitchell". This meant so much to Aliah who loved & respected how Joni was an artist who continually took her art deeper - growing and changing through following her muse with each next album. And like Aliah, Joni was also a painter - in addition to being a folk rock songwriter who dipped into Jazz as Aliah had done with the sax. Joni had given Aliah permission to explore & express who she was as an artist fully - as a way of life.

Aliah began playing her piano songs in the Lunch Concert Series at Phoenix College and this was what got her to start gigging. She had left dance at her high school to study music and yoga. After a life of dance, yoga came really easily and made total sense to her as a way to appreciate the body each day. Then, she won 2nd place in a Phoenix College Talent Show with a solo dance piece. She had found that yoga had made her dance even stronger. She loved how yoga focused on the sacred connection to the body she had always felt with dance - it was why she became vegetarian at 13 and she kept learning about being healthy and healing ever since. From her yoga class, she met new friends who were into health and they invited her to go to Living Love Workshops (Handbook to Higher Consciousness by Ken Keys) and she began studying Self-Hypnosis Visualizations and meditation.

She had started sax pretty late compared to the kids in her award winning high school band - many who started their instruments in the 2nd grade and had been playing ever since. She was told that she had progressed very fast and was good - yet she was not quite good enough to play in the Jazz band at her High School. She practiced all summer and had a private teacher in Santa Monica (where she also had a lead in a play) who gave her a jazz sax song to play - Angel Eyes... and her playing totally quantum leaped. She also went to a voice teacher who suggested she drop dance and go learn music theory, and play in the college Jazz band with her sax. So, when she came back home she did just that... she joined the Phoenix College Jazz Band where she sat next to the top player from her high school who had graduated last year. He took her under his wing and taught her improvisational basics. This proved to her that every no is a yes somewhere else - that's better for you - and that's why the no happen - so the secret is in moving on well - yet moving on... listening inside for what the heart says and it leads us to the YES... that is always there... and better suited to us..

#3 LIFE CHOICE: Every no leads to a yes - as we learn to say... thank you, next!
Each ending is a beginning somewhere else if we have the strength to find it and go for it by letting go of the "no". So when you get a "no" - be grateful for the clear direction - this is how we are guided... so say... "Thank you - NEXT!" and spiral on...

The Phoenix College Teachers were especially gifted at giving the next step to their students. After studying Bach Chorals in her first year of music theory during her senior year of high school - they went on the next year of music theory to 2 & then, 3 part inventions that she was also playing on piano. Aliah asked the teacher where it was all leading... and he hesitated.. and then said conclusively - "the fugue".

She was inspired to challenge the whole class to write a fugue.

Scott Brazieal was a brilliant pianist - another senior at a different Phoenix high school who was also going to Phoenix College Theory Class. The two became good friends and then Scott asked her to join his band CARTOON who played the whole Rocky and Bulwinkle theme in their shows that had visuals and were quite theatric at concerts. She went on to do her own songs... yet she was there long enough to learn how they scupted songs from their improvizations - they were amazingly inovative - and evolved into P.F.S. More recently, Scott put out his own CD in 2009.. his music together with Martin Luther King Jr. clips on it... he's brilliant.. check out the latest Scott Brazieal CD: Songs From The Empire.

Scott was a young piano prodigy who could actually play fugues on piano - so he started one to meet her challenge to the class to write one and got about half way. Much to her surprise, she was the only one who turned in a finished fugue. So her teacher supported her in getting players to record it - 3 voices on harp and 1 on flute that she recorded in the practice rooms where the harp was - in one take both parts were played and recorded. Later, she added the spokenword poetry and sung vocals at Synchestra Studios where she hung out a lot at after that to learn about music recording. She called the song: "From The Breeze" about insights on following our dreams... like the wind - a never ending artistic dream. Years later after getting her BA in Humanities from New College of California - she returned home to Arizona - to Tempe where she choreographed & performed the song in a Master Choreography Class at ASU fufilling her her vision of dancing to the music she wrote.

After going 2 years to Phoenix College... her senior year and freshman year, she moved to Tempe after being accepted to ASU - it seemed like the next step. She moved to Tempe in the summer to get settled and take Freshman English. Her love of writing had been nurtured by her High School English teacher and after 10 minutes with this Freshman English teacher at ASU summer school - it was obvious that her negativity was something to be of concern. Aliah knew she needed to protect her love of writing - so when the teacher asked everyone before they leave to write a page of a change that happened where they thought one way but then changed their minds - she decided to write hers about taking the class. She wrote how she loved to write... songs, poems, stories, and was excited to be taking a writing class this summer - until I saw how negative the teacher was... and now she would be dropping the class for the sake of protecting her writing. As she left the English class... she was rewarded for following her muse when she then stumbled into a mixed media performance art class where the teacher let her sit in for the whole summer because the class was full. It was very transformational for her and her views about art and being an artist were forever changed. As part of her new life in Tempe she started leading songs at Full Moon Gatherings for her hours at the Gentle Strength Co-op. However, once the Fall classes came she found that with the dance, theater, and music departments each separate - were across the huge campus from each other... it really did not fit the needs of an interdisciplinary artists. And the music teachers did not like pop music at all. She had a very cool yoga teacher who suggested a school in San Francisco where you can make your own program - and learn from professional artists in the Bay Area of your choice. Now that's education!

So she moved to San Francisco and lived in a flat on the corner of Haight & Ashbury... to go to this amazing school that was born out of the 60's called NEW COLLEGE OF CALIFRONIA - an alternative school where she was able to study with the best teachers in the Bay Area as part of her self-directed curriculum. They had one class that was required - "Compared To What?" Where they were told to make short term, long term and life time goals and with everyone supporting each person in looking at their goals with them. The final was doing your short term goal. Going to this school was perfect for a budding artist to explore the path of being an artist among so many other artists - she had finally found a place where just about everyone was an artist who cared about being healthy, the environment, and the world - - being deep thinking & eccentric was "normal". Her roommate was a wonderful painter and they the big room that was the corner of Height & Ashbury was where groups of artists would gather to discuss life and art... this was better than the 60's - it was the life of bohemian visionary artists - her life in San Francisco set her free.

After being an anti-nuke protester for a while.. she wanted to focus on what could help instead of what was not working. She wrote SONGS OF ALTANTIS - a show that was music for a presentation to help promote OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion) to school assembles. This choice rippled in every part of her life. Walking towards solutions and away from arguments with those who say it can't be done. She understood how that drains our energy - she was done with being a protester trying to be "right" instead she was an activist - inspiring change by looking for the yes!

#4 LIFE CHOICE: Focus on SOLUTIONS for what's possible rather than convincing those who disagree. Keep inspiring change by looking for the YES... eventually, it shows itself - as we continue to look for it. By being an activist - and doing something positive - we inspire change - yet more so we live there... in the positive.

As mentioned above... she came back to Arizona with her BA in Humanities from NEW COLLEGE after taking the masters choreography class in the summer at ASU - where she was able to use her Fugue "From the Breeze" that she turned into a spokenword performance art dance piece. Dancing to the music she had written to was the dream that started her on her way and she had done it. She was going to continue through the Fall in the Dance Department but found that the dancers were not at all health focused - in fact just the opposite. Choosing to be healthy has always been important to her - especially when driving her body so hard with dance classes all day - so she left ASU and again - was brought back to yoga.

Aliah's deep yoga awakening...

Her life completely changed after choosing Yoga again over dance classes. It all started when she met Shri Raman - a practicing yogi for over 50 years who was full of life and joyful about yoga. He was 5'2", 120 lb's, and 80 years young and was very healthy and full of vitality. He had been a vegetarian activist for just as long as he had been doing yoga and connected the two. She took his yoga class that he offered at a Gentle Strength Co-op special event. She told him she wanted to start studying with him. He smiled and took Aliah as a student by saying: "Come to my house before the sunrise - and as the sun rises - we make yoga!". So she drove to his house in the dark for 3 months and learned to live as a yogi. He asked all his students who did this intensive Yoga Teacher's Training to do a Activism Project. Aliah found that the Yoga focus prepared her for her first one woman show that she performed in Tempe, AZ - A Dancer For Peace Dedicated to Peace Pilgrim who walked 7 times across the US in the name of peace - teaching the ways of peace.

#5 LIFE CHOICE: Doing what you love should be good for you. if you are attracted to what is not good for you... look at that. And go inward to find what brings you joy. When you find & follow your calling you will see that upgrading to that feeds your soul. So keep listening inside and allowing natural gifts to develop skills around - when you follow through on that... you have a self esteem that is based on accomplishing your visions and no one can give you that or take it away. It is a gift you give your highest self and offers a deep joy in life. Focusing gifts into the skills that build them strong allows one to follow ones bliss... in a kind an considerate way... appreciating all that comes and making it easy for others to help you.

Aliah has just gotten some really bad offers and was looking at the music business with new eyes when she met Paz who had just produced his own recordings where he played all the instruments and he could write major grooves. Paz & Aliah met at DanceHome - a non-alcohol dance club and after the weekend never separated. They were determined to bring out the best in each other - it was a magical "YES-YES" love. (No if's, and's, or buts... no maybes... just YES!) Both of them were so happy to find someone who wanted to share this dream of rock with a life that would settle down to being unsettled. Aliah got it when Paz said, "Instead of waiting to be discovered - let's discover our selves and keep learning the tools to produce what we wanted to create instead of waiting for someone to tell us how to do it."

#7 LIFE CHOICE: Discover yourself or someone else will do it for you. Learn the skills needed to express yourself and be creative for a life time - not just for a so-called "lucky break". It's all about making hard work fun - and that comes from being in your heart and when it's time to be moving on - saying "Thank you, next!" allowing the next opportunity - that shows up because of letting go & knowing the next opportunities will appear as you keep walking your talk - and appreciating everything.. and allowing it to help you spiral on...

Paz and Aliah started making music on many levels right away.
Then they headed out to Boston to play the streets of Harvard Square
with the new folk scene emerging.
Harmonizing their original folkfunk songs
with Paz on upright acoustic bass and Aliah on sax.
They played Cambridge Earth Day & promoted it on College Radio Stations with their songs.
It had always been a dream for Aliah to go to
Boston Berklee School of Music
Aliah applied and they gave her a rarely given out
vocal scholarship reserved for unique singer/songwriters.
While there she received several songwriting awards from both students and teachers - she found a friend in Pat Pattison - a teacher that got her spark.

At the same time, Aliah together with her band/life partner Paz (vocals, bass, guitar, & flute) were also playing out as TOUCH. Besides becoming regulars on the streets of Harvard Square along with fellow Rockaholix Lourdes Pita (who is heading ROCKAHOLIX BOSTON) they would go electric with more players in a full band. After 2 Boston winters they headed on back to San Diego where their band SOULER SYSTEM played FunkRock to crowds at EarthFair in Balboa Park, Whole Being Weekend, and The San Diego Fair for a few years in a row - as well as regularly playing in cafes & clubs.

Once they heard the music coming out of Austin - they were magically draw to move there for the amazing funky RnB meets blues rock sound they loved. So they moved there and re-formed SOULER SYSTEM. And they became part of a very cool scene that earned them a regular gig at the White Rabbit, while playing cafes around, and the legendary Steamboat and at festivals.

They saw that everyone was reaching for bread crumbs of exposure - they decided to bake loafs of exposure bread and started handing it out to talented folks with a passion for a kinder world. For 10 years they covered the wonderfully cool Austin music, art, poetry, and activism scene as well as those traveling through with their many Variety TV Shows.

#8 LIFE CHOICE: Working for causes bigger than your ambitions gives you energy - "hey, look at me" get's old fast and drains our energy and just isn't as much fun as sharing it with others for a good cause that unifies energy. Then, we are offering energy that is limitless instead of energy that is limited and the music gets very high - once we do this - why would we choose any less?

One day SOULER SYSTEM was playing a gig where there was a baby grand and Aliah was early and started playing her more intimate material and Tim Records (Austin City Limits) heard her and offered to record her songs that he felt needed to be heard. She had been playing in bands for years that she wrote other material for.. this was the music just for her.. that she had kept writing since her Believe in Love show yet again not really showed to many people. He kept asking her and finally she decided to see what they would sound like recorded with a full band - like she heard in her head.

Paz helped her with the CD and to play out with her solo material. Aliah got some major interest so she started recording her 2nd solo CD Shades of Images with one of the most in demand Austin producers at the time - Mitch Watkins (Bob Schneider, Abra Moore). Paz and Aliah released her 2nd solo CD Shades of Images and they took this back to San Diego where Aliah and Paz played her solo material and continued to develop electronica for the changing sounds of SPIRAL ON....

"Little Shelf" was also the song picked to represent her
at the A2A Music Festival in Amsterdam and this lead to
some airplay in Europe - especially for that song.

From a review of Aliah's A2A Music Festival Showcase
in Amsterdam just weeks after 9/11.
She came offering love & light while the whole world
mourned the loss - she came to play 2 songs - both came quickly:
"We Here Now" & "The Holy City"
Both came to help heal us of scare-city...
& lead us to synchronicity!

"Aliah flowed onto the stage, creating a powerful etheric energy within a pop music framework. Having nothing more than a portable synthesizer... she sang as if she was carrying her band within herself. Her voice had a naturalness
that was totally effortless.

She is as genuine as they come and brings us back
to a peaceful garden where we can all
dance barefoot among the wildflowers.
We are lucky to have her (Aliah) in our midst
as a present day messenger of another way that is
right as sunlight and simple as rain.
Her vision combines many music styles such as
pop, rock, funk, blues, and world rhythms.
She is a well accomplished artist,
songwriter, and a visionary who will easily
find a place in your heart."

-Shema
Austin Daze