YouTube, with its millions of video snippets, contains only one entry from the Jewish/Israeli band Esta, featuring shots from its 2004 European tour. Yet if you can track it down, you'll probably find it most unusual: One man plucks a banjo, while another blows on bagpipes.

Later, he plays what sounds like belly dance or snake charmer music, while the female singer undulates wordlessly, as though this were a Bollywood film.

You might wonder what any of that has to do with either Jews or Israelis, until the band moves seamlessly into a Middle Eastern-tinged klezmer tune and ends with a version of the Sephardic Sabbath hymn "Dror Yikra."

Clearly, this is a new generation of Israeli musicians, moving to a multicultural beat, and not impressed by the stirring dogma behind the stereotypical Israeli folk of the '50s and '60s (Theodore Bikel or "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena").

Esta don't play your grandfather's favorite folk songs. And part of the reason is this group of good-looking Sabras (first-generation Israelis) grew up in the '70s listening to British art rock, such as Genesis and Yes.

"I think what we liked in the progressive rock was that [bands] were together for a long time improvising, and that no two bands from the '70s sounded alike, much more than today," explains Esta founder and percussionist Shlomo Deshet. "Some of their inspiration was also from ethnic music, so combining that with our own native sounds was natural, because that's what we grew up on."

Deshet's parents immigrated to Israel from Iraq, so he was exposed to different kinds of Middle Eastern music. But his older siblings listened to rock from the UK and the States, and Deshet with his youthful friend, guitarist Ori Beanstock, went through a period of absorbing rock and jazz. In the Israeli Army band, the pair met with reedist Amir Gwirtzman and bassist Bentzi Gafni to form what later would congeal into "world fusion" group Esta.

But there was one problem -- in the late '80s, the term "world music" didn't really exist in Israel, even though the country was already known as the birthplace of Yemenite-Jewish pop sensation Ofra Haza (with whom Gwirtzman played on U.S. and European tours). "So we found ourselves mainly playing jazz festivals because there weren't any other situations," recalls Deshet. "We were categorized as jazz because we improvised."

Esta released its debut eponymous CD in 1990, and made TV appearances with the likes of Algerian rai star Cheb Khaled and African pop singer Mory Kante, but for much of the following decade, they became yordim (Israeli expatriates) living in the bubbling cultural cauldron of downtown Manhattan. "The main reason we moved to New York City was to develop the sound on our own, to be able to take the music to higher levels," says Deshet. "[New York] is a very competitive scene. You have to be at your best all the time."

Within several years, Esta's world fusion gained enough fame to be recommended for an appearance in 1998 at the White House with then-President Bill Clinton. "It was definitely a high point in our career," Deshet recalls. "He was charming -- he came out after the soundcheck and complimented us, and mentioned us in his speech. We felt really welcome, and it opened a lot of doors.

By the time Esta returned to Israel, the cultural emphasis on "ethnic" flavor had caught up with the band. "I think Israeli musicians started realizing they couldn't sell 'Israeli rock' to the world, so bands adopted ethnic influences as a way to sound unique. If you come from Israel, you have to have a different sound for people to pay attention."

Captivating vocalist Yarona Harel joined the band in 2000, shifting the focus from the jamming elements as she takes center stage, clicking away on the sagat (Egyptian finger cymbals). "When she came in with the lyrics, that changed the band," says Deshet. "She also uses her voice as another instrument. So now, some of the concert is instrumental, some of it is songs, and some anything in between. [Yarona] has an ability to connect with people."

Yet adding a singer doesn't mean Esta has gone pop. "We were never in the mainstream, and we've always kept an artistic point of view," adds Deshet. "It's not like a pop format where we play short songs and repeat the same things concert after concert. We stretch out and play music like they used to do in the '70s."

So might there be allusions to fusion bands like Weather Report?

"The term 'jazz fusion' might be a bit misleading to apply to us, because what we do is a more atmospheric and Middle Eastern way of improvising. Jazz can be a little far from people sometimes, when [it seems like] musicians enjoy it more than the audience. In our case, there's always something that can capture their ears, for example if there's a unique instrument being played on top of something else that's not the traditional background for it."

The total list of ethnic instruments that the band wields is quite exhaustive, ranging from Gwirtzman's arghul (Egyptian clarinet) and duduk (a double-reed horn from Armenia, made famous by Djivan Gasparyan) to Beanstock's bouzouki, quarter-tone guitar (designed to play Middle Eastern scales) and saz. Situation permitting, Deshet breaks out a percussion parade he calls the "Darbukada" (a wordplay on the Brazilian batucada). And then there are the band's own inventions, including the zornaphone ("Amir uses a special mouthpiece to play the soprano sax as a zorna [Iranian shawm]" and the shofarophone ("I play the regular shofar as an instrument. It has holes in it so it can play notes"), as well as Deshet's tabla drum kit. "It's a kit with some additional stuff I put together that makes it sound like a tabla. I use my elbow to change the pitch of the floor tom. I played tabla for a couple years, and brought those characteristics to the drums."

With such an impressive musical arsenal, it's no wonder Esta has been received favorably at worldwide festivals, including the granddaddy "world beat" gathering of them all -- WOMAD. The band's CD releases have trickled out -- only three in almost 20 years, including 2002's "Home Made World," but it's halfway through working on a new one, and wouldn't mind changing its do-it-yourself tactics if a formidable label such as Peter Gabriel's RealWorld stepped up to the plate. "There were always talks to be signed, and they were one of the names that popped up," says Deshet. "We could really fit well into their catalog, so that door is still open."

Indeed, there's a common thread between Esta and other bands that deal with a range of international influences, such as Afro-Celtic Sound System. But Deshet stresses that Esta has found a way to retain their uniqueness.

"Since we've played together for so many years, it's a real band, not a production," he says, "and it's also in our roots. Our music is like a really good chopped salad, where you taste all the ingredients together and it becomes one new taste, rather than just [tasting] the tomato. It's a little bit like gourmet cooking."

And in a year when the band's homeland is celebrating a momentous 60th anniversary, too many musical cooks can't spoil the broth.

"We are all very proud to be Israeli, and we think that Israel has a lot to offer the world," Deshet continues. "Through the music, we deliver many messages but underneath the surface -- we don't lecture or get into politics. I think the fact that we play music from Islamic, Christian, Jewish and Western sources, and that it all comes together for us, proves that there is more in common between people than what separates them.

"If it can happen between instruments, then it should be able to happen between people."