Ziba Shirazi Ziba Shirazi set herself and her dreams free when she left Iran and moved to Los Angeles in 1986. She longed to be free to write poignant lyrics; she yearned to sing and compose without being hindered by suffocating cultural intolerance. Ziba is from the ancient land called Persia and the language and the culture of that 5000 year old civilization are, as she says," In every cell of my body". The wondrous, troubling, miraculous thing is that jazz, literature and social equality are also within her molecules. The result is music that is not a blending of two ways of life but a true synthesis, something greater and more artistically moving than the sum of its parts. The songs of Ziba Shirazi whether joyous or pensive, whether predominately jazz, blues, or Iranian folk in flavor are never simply nostalgic, never backward looking, always open ended, always with a hint of the future. If Ziba has a message it is to leave behind what needs to be left behind and to take the best of all of our traditions into a finer, better, and more complete world.