RockOm

By Tom Crenshaw, Tom@RockOm.net

Most formulas for success in the music industry don't include exiting the lime-light at the pinnacle of one's career, but Matt Malley (bassist and co-founder of the Counting Crows) did just this in 2004. Matt retired after 14 years with Counting Crows just as the band was celebrating an Academy Award nomination for their song "Accidentally In Love," which appeared in the motion picture Shrek 2 Soundtrack.

Matt now follows another path, one focused on the home-front and family. He's now a full time father and husband as well as a record producer, session bassist, ashram keeper and student of the Mohan Veena or Indian slide guitar. Matt is a student and friend of Grammy winner Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and when chance brings them together, is either learning from his music "guru" or recording Bhatt's guitar in his home studio at the family ashram.

Matt has also just released his first solo record titled The Goddess Within. As a longtime student of Sahaja Yoga meditation Matt has infused The Goddess Within with sacred sounds, rhythms and harmonies, but don't expect this collection to be a velvety venture into serene, mystical realms. Matt rocks out when he's blissed-off and proves higher states needn't be all sanctified-sounding. One can be on the edge, pushing the boundaries both cosmically and musically at the same time.

In this exclusive interview with RockOm Matt speaks about the reasons he left Counting Crows, Kundalini energy and Sahaja yoga, learning the Indian slide guitar, his debut album and his musical intentions for the future.

Tom: You're an Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe-nominated songwriter and a co-founder as well as a 14-year member of Counting Crows. The question is, why does one leave a band as successful as the Counting Crows?

Matt: Good question. Actually it was fatherhood. But when my second boy was born in January of 2004 I just couldn't handle being a missing-in-action dad. My first one was born in 2000 and I missed the first three or four years of his life because we lived in hotel rooms out touring. That was really hard. So when the second child was born I lasted about another year and then I just had to get out and push the eject button. I haven't looked back. The money was good but money doesn't mean anything. We're still friends and the guys in the band are all like brothers, but I didn't need to be away from home anymore. It was grating on my soul and that's why I left.

Tom: How does something that you love so much turn into something you have to get away from?

Matt: When I first joined the band I wasn't married and wasn't a father yet so my life was better suited for touring and traveling like we did. I'm still a fan of ol' Adam; he's a great songwriter and that's why I stuck with him so long, but family came along and it outweighed my enthusiasm for being the bass player in Counting Crows. I didn't want to be the dad that comes home once every four or five months and visits for a couple of weeks and the kids don't know me that well. Even though the band was still fun, my life on the outside changed.

Tom: How did you get started into music?

Matt: When I was about seven years old a guy came to our grammar school and tested everyone in the class to see who had musical talent. He singled me out and told my parents that I needed to start taking piano lessons. I took classical piano when I was seven or eight and also went through trumpet and violin in the school bands through grammar school. That was my first exposure to music. Honestly, I didn't really like classical piano because it was kind of like typing. I had to memorize these pieces and I didn't feel it in my heart, I just had to memorize things with my brain. I wish I had stuck with it because classical music is an incredible art form.

Tom: When kids discover music for the first time and have the opportunity to play an instrument, especially alongside other kids, they discover something about themselves that's brand new. What did you discover about yourself through music that you may not have otherwise?

Matt: It was my first taste of collective awareness or collective consciousness. You're with a group and you all are achieving something harmonious at the same time. That was new to me as a kid... as I imagine it would be to any kid. [Laughs]

Tom: Tell us about your debut album The Goddess Within. How did that come about?

Matt: The lady on the album cover founded a type of meditation that I've been doing for over 20 years. Her name is Sri Matajii. She was born in the center of India in 1923 and is still alive today but is elderly and quiet and has stopped giving public programs. She's was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in the late 90s, though she didn't get it. [She teaches] a technique and a knowledge of the spiritual machinery that we're all born with. It's a universal truth and not from one religion; in fact it ties a lot of the prophets' teachings together. It involves an awakening of what's called the Kundalini or what in the Orient is called the Chi and it resides at the sacrum bone at the base of the spine. Sacrum is Latin for sacred, so whoever named the bone knew that it contained something. The Kundalini is regarded as the feminine aspect of divinity and so the Goddess within is kind of like my term for the Kundalini, the Goddess. The masculine aspect of God or spirit is in our heart as a spark called the Atman in India. The Kundalini is like a gas that rises up and unites with the spark, carrying it up to the fontanelle bone area at the top of the head. Fontanelle is French for fountain, so whoever named that area named it auspiciously as well. This teaching just connects a lot of the world's religions. Even in Christianity, the saints at Pentecost had tongues of fire coming out of the top of their heads but Christians have just seen that as a mystery.

In learning about the Kundalini, I've approached it like a scientist... no blind faith. Smart people don't just believe something that they're told; they have to find out for themselves. When the Kundalini is awakened you feel it as a cool breeze on the palms of your hands and out the top of your head. You could say that the central nervous system becomes integrated with the spiritual nervous system or the parasympathetic, the seven chakras. The knowledge that [Sri Matajii] teaches is really in depth. She's spoken to the Jungian Society and she's a Nobel Peace Prize nominee... you could say I'm a disciple of hers.

Tom: Did you ever get a chance to meet her in person?

Matt: Yes, a few times, but it was very formal. You don't just talk casually with her. I let her do the talking. Back in the late 90s I got to sit with her a couple of times. She knew I was in a rock band so the way she saw that was that I was helping bring vibrations into the music industry. She had asked me about Kurt Cobain who had killed himself a couple of years before. I remember responding, "I think it was drugs that made him do that." And she said, "I think he was frustrated." She asked about a lot of things related to music with me; it was very interesting.

Tom: I suppose she felt you could reach a lot of people.

Matt: Yes and by reaching them it doesn't mean preaching about her yoga. It's just that the presence of being out there puts vibrations into where you are. Wherever you put your attention, the Kundalini will follow.

Tom: So for this CD, did you go into meditation or prepare in some other way?

Matt: I didn't do any exercises or anything like that. We live in an ashram; in fact, I own an ashram with three buildings and our friends who do our meditation live here. We kind of live in vibration so I don't meditate or anything right before playing music. We meditate every morning at day break. The record was just done during the day somewhat spontaneously and when I felt good I would go work on it.

Tom: What are the intentions for this album?

Matt: Rather than clobber people over the head with my one practice, I'm hoping to continue to introduce spirituality to the Western world. I'm interested in Indian culture, the Hindu deities, the great religions of the world including Christianity, Mohammad was a great teacher... I'm just hoping to continue what a lot of artists are doing by introducing a spiritual outlook - without being religious - to the Western world.

Tom: You've expressed interest in Qawwali as well. How did you get interested in that?

Matt: I discovered Qawwali in the 90s and fell in love with it. It's a very aggressive Indian vocal style of singing. When I would do pilgrimages to India and I'd be at my Sahaja Yoga get-togethers, they'd often have Qawwali artists or bhajans or lots of Indian classical music and the Qawwali artists always stuck out to me. They would be almost frightening and wearing their matching hats; I almost consider it the heavy metal of Indian classical music. [Laughs] When I learned about the translation of the words, I was blown way. Qawwali music originated in what was Persia about 700 years ago as Sufi devotional music and has a connection to Islam but it's beyond just that now. I'm just a big fan of that art form.

Tom: You're also studying Indian slide guitar. We interviewed Debashish Bhattacharya last year when he was in Savannah, GA with Derek Trucks, Bob Brozman and Jerry Douglas. It's a difficult art to learn. How long have you been studying this?

Matt: It's really not easy at all. [Laughs] After ten years of learning it, I'm still on the tip of the iceberg. I know that when children start playing in India they'll be doing what's called the alankar for two or three years which is just exercises up and down the major scale before they actually start learning anything. They spend all that time just getting their pitch right. Slide guitar is like that; it's hard to get the pitch just right unless you practice the alankar for a long time.

Tom: Are you going to continue to move forward with spiritual music or get back in with the Crows? What does the future hold for you?

Matt: I'm not all that interested in a rock band anymore. It's a very blunt art form. Not to diss it or anything; a lot of the great rock records are also spiritual records. "Stairway to Heaven" is a Goddess song. I don't know if it's age or what but I'm getting more subtle. I'm reinventing myself and I'd like to give Indian music concerts on my slide guitar some day; I don't know when. I'd like to spend the rest of my life doing that.

www.mattmalley.com

RockOm Round-up is a quick glance at what's going on around the world in the areas of music and spirituality...

• Dr. Mehmet Oz on Complimentary Medicine: 'Challenge the Status Quo' - "Music has an essential effect on how we feel. During surgery Oz listens to high-energy songs by Bruce Springsteen, but music isn't only for the doctors. During recovery patients are invited to join in music therapy. While singing 'Dream a Little Dream' with recovering patients, Oz explains that singing prompts deeper breathing and healing. " (abcnews.go.com)
• Wide Awake - You've read RockOm's interview with John Cooper of Skillet (currently on the homepage), now see a different interview, where John goes a little deeper on the theological Christian elements of their album Awake. (christianitytoday.com)
• New 'music therapy on wheels' delivers healing tunes to pediatric patients - "Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA has a new mobile tool to deliver music therapy and help pediatric patients cope with the fear, isolation and pain associated with being in the hospital. The Music Rx unit is a high-tech, interactive studio on wheels that includes everything necessary for music therapy, both in group settings and one-on-one. " (newsroom.ucla.edu)
• Why Sleep are a dream band for stoners - "Recorded by Steve Albini, the opening track 'Thebes'... is a reference to the city assailed by tragedy in Greek mythology... Is 'Thebes' an analogy for the state of the world today? I think so. If Thebes retells the story of a city destroyed by insanity, the following track 'Mediation is the Practice of Death' concerns the Buddhist belief of maransati or death awareness, the ability to fully accept death within your subconscious." (guardian.co.uk)
• 'We preach the message of love through Sufi music' - "We use the poetry of Sufi saints, mystics, and friends of God for our Qawwali performances. We also compose ourselves. As musicians, we can compose each verse according to its mood and the mood of the singing. If the mood is fast, the music is fast, if the mood is slow, the music is slow... Qawwali is a very spiritual and devotional thing. I can say this because we have been in this profession for the past 750 years." (tehrantimes.com)

by Brooklyn Qawwali Party

BQP's Website

Paying tribute to one of the world's great vocalists, Brooklyn Qawwali Party formed to honor the legendary Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, reworking his thunderous songs for an eclectic, eleven-piece orchestra comprised of groundbreaking jazz musicians. Funky, smart, and loving, BQP captures the joyful spirit of this Pakistani folk music in a unique instrumental blend of jazz and Qawwali. With five horns, guitar, bass, harmonium, and three percussionists, this band's buoyant rhythms will be sure to get you on your feet and clapping.

The New York Times says, "Liking Brooklyn Qawwali Party doesn't depend on if you know what Qawwali is. Nor does it depend on how you feel about Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, its most revered practitioner. This is an 11-piece band with brass, reeds, harmoniums, drums and percussion that piles texture into Mr. Khan's melodies, ultimately transforming them; it's joyous music, and this band adds all the extra fun and funk it knows."

Featured Track: "Mustt Mustt"

"For BQP, the meanings of the songs we perform are illuminated within each individual performance. We're not sufis, we are jazz musicians who hold a deep appreciation for this particular music and the spirit within it. Our music is instrumental, not lyrical; we hope to allow the melodies that we play to inform us of the spirit of the Sufi poetry in the moment of performance, and are always discovering through that process." (Brook Martinez, founder and percussionist)

An Interview with Kirtan Artist Gaura Vani
By Tom Crenshaw and Trevor Harden

“I was given the gift of devotional song from birth, raised with the music of the temple, taught to sing and play beautiful instruments and dance... for love and for God,” says Gaura Vani, the heralded musician and leader of what Jai Uttal calls, “Simply the most wonderful kirtan band in the Western world.”  Gaura Vani & As Kindred Spirits has released their second CD entitled Ten Million Moons and are in the midst of a prolific year. Not only has the band been featured at the sold-out Obama Presidential Inaugural event Chant4Change, they have also recently been heard on NPR’s All Things Considered and seen in the CBS Television Special, Faith, Music and Culture.

At the age of six Gaura Vani left the US to study sacred music in a gurukula or temple school in the timeless town of Vrindavan, India. He learned ancient prayers in Sanskrit and Bengali and to sing and play ethnic instruments like the harmonium and mrdanga. Twenty-five years later he continues to share the magic he received and performs extensively with his kirtan ensemble, As Kindred Spirits, throughout the world from Europe and Asia, to the Americas.

The kirtan sub-culture is a lotus growing from the mud of materialism. Kirtan refers to the ancient practice of gathering for musical worship in the ancient traditions of India. It’s still very alive today. Empty rooms quickly transform into a churning mass of bodies, dancing feet, eyes flashing, hands striking two headed mrdanga drums. This is the epicenter of the kirtan subculture. Gathering together in yoga studios, temples, ashrams, homes (in the basement of your seemingly average neighbor) this vibrant spiritual and musical subculture thrives.

Gaura Vani founded As Kindred Spirits in 1998 with percussionist/multi-instrumentalist, Shyam Kishore, who studied classical Indian music directly from living masters like Zakhir Hussein. Together they have created a special style. Rooted in the Indian kirtan tradition, their diverse influences span the musical spectrum from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Jai Uttal, Jagjit Singh, and Axiom of Choice to Beck, Bjork, Peter Gabriel and DJ Cheb I Sabbah. This group brings a fresh take to sacred world-music.

RockOm: What was the inspiration behind Ten Million Moons and how is it different than your past CD?

Gaura: Well my last CD was almost like it fell on my head. I've lived in Washington, DC for the past 10 years and a friend of mine called me up from California and said, "I got a hold of some recording equipment. What are the chances of you flying out to California so we can make an album together?" So we got together in a friend's bedroom in a house full of people and tried to record during the times when no one was making noise. We did basically the whole album, give or take a couple of tracks, in a week. We threw a couple more songs on, some live recordings, and that was the first album. It had a lot of raw energy and was really from the heart and was coming from the love we all share as musicians.

This album, although I tried my absolute best to maintain some of that love, energy and spirit, was from a very different place. It was a much deeper place and I was going through some very tough times in my life. I was working at a job as a filmmaker doing training films for the US government, the Department of Homeland Security. It's a very politically-charged environment, very difficult for someone who's more artistic. It's very hard to function sometimes. I put everything I had into my music whenever I could. I would come home from working a 10, 12, or 14-hour day and put in one or two hours in the studio before falling asleep at the soundboard. Myself, along with my business partner Rasa Acharya, just put everything we could into this album after hours. It was such a personal creation, an exploration, and I honestly didn't know if anyone was going to like it. First of all, I didn't even know if the musicians on the album were going to like it because they come from such a wide array of influences - everything from very classical Indian to very modern and funky Western. I just was trying to use my sensibilities to honor their contributions while at the same time trying to create something brand new. Little by little I started showing it to some of the musicians who were on it and started to get a good response from them. Then I started to show it to other friends and record labels, and people liked it. I'm just so grateful and thankful.

The two albums come from such different places - the first was just a pure joy of creation with friends and the second one was more of a yearning, a longing for a more free and innocent time to be able to create like that, which didn't exist for me during the creation of this album.

RockOm: You founded As Kindred Spirits in 1998 with your percussionist and associate Shyam Kishore, who had studied under [RockOm alum] Zakir Hussain at the Ali Akbar Khan School of Music. What was the intention of starting As Kindred Spirits?

Gaura: Shyam comes from an Indian family. I come from an American family who converted to Hinduism and Krishna worship in the 1960s. So we came from two very different places and at the same time we were meeting in the middle, trying to find a way to take an ancient tradition and live it in a real, honest modern world. I think the reason we chose an English name as opposed to a Sanskrit name or a Hindi name is that spiritual life - whatever denomination, if you're a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jew, Buddhist - we feel like it should be a living piece of your life, something that you don't only do on Sundays, something you can do 24-hours a day. You can live it at work, you can live it at private times and it shouldn't be something you're divided about. The idea of creating As Kindred Spirits was to take some of our influences - especially spiritual influences - and mold them and push them in a way that challenged us and that we could live by, and that our friends could live by, that could actually be the soundtrack of our lives. I feel that it is an important thing for our generation to say, "You know what? My religion is not something I'm doing for someone else. My spirituality is not something I'm doing as a social pressure. I'm doing it because this is my expression of my soul calling to the divine. And this is what I do, whether I do it at church or do it at home. It's a real expression of my heart."

RockOm: At the age of 6 you left the states to study sacred music at a temple in India. What was the catalyst for your move?

Gaura: During the tumultuous 1960s, there were people from all over the world who were away from where they had been raised, looking for something that made sense to them on their own terms spiritually. My mother and father were some of those people. I grew up in ashrams, which are like yoga schools, and temples throughout the world. There's a very traditional school in a small temple town called Vrindavan, which is where Krishna was born. It was like a boarding school that was connected to a beautiful, marble temple. Myself and a bunch of other kids from all over the world grew up there including the study of sacred music and sacred ritual. That was really an important time for me in my life. I was only there for a year or so, but that kind of experience is very formative. It changes your perspective on the world. I continued to study at ashrams until I was 10, then went to standard American schools. So those two worlds - having the ancient Indian spiritual education along with a regular old American upbringing - created a very interesting synergy in the mind and in the heart.

RockOm: Speaking of young people and changing the world, tell us about your experience and involvement in Chant4Change.

Gaura: Everyone was starting to feel enlivened by Obama's campaign. Even if you didn't feel Obama was the candidate, the idea that something like this was in the air was inspiring and exciting to everybody; that the old systems, the old boundaries, and the old ways of doing things were not necessarily how they were always going to be. And then for myself and a lot of my friends, when Obama won, it was really a sense of - wow, what will the future be? What is possible? What are we going to manifest through this opportunity?

We were in New York shortly after Obama won and after the initial fever died down, one of my friends said, "What are you going to be doing during the Inauguration, because I'm going to be in Washington?" I swear to you, it felt like a ton of bricks fell on my head and shoulders. I thought, "Oh, my Lord. There's no big chant event, no big kirtan event going on during that time. Conscious people from all over the world are either going to be in Washington or going to be focused on Washington. I just knew at that moment, standing on that street in New York City that we have to do something. So for that evening's concert and other concerts we were doing in the city, I started telling people that we are organizing an amazing event in Washington, DC that's going to be held on the Inauguration. Everyone around me just looked at me and said, "Are you sure you know what you're doing" But I just felt it, I knew it had to be done. I felt like it was an opportunity I couldn't pass.

That next week when we came back to Washington we had two months to organize this event, all the locations in Washington were sold out. There were rumors that even Oprah Winfrey and MTV couldn't find a location. We just did a lot of praying, did a lot of phone calling and seeing what was possible and we started to pull together like a coalition of friends: yoga teachers, conscious people, artists - everyone who was into it that found it realistic, possible and exciting. Chant4Change ending up being a totally sold out, star-studded event: Jai Uttal and Shiva Rea were there, very influential yoga and kirtan people, other yoga teachers and activitists, Grammy-award winner Toni Childs was there. It just became an event unto itself. We had a small church within sight of the White House on 16th street, so we were within sight of the focus of that evening's attention. [We were there] to chant, to empower and uplift the new administration, to bless ourselves and the city and the country and bless the outgoing administration. Somehow sending out blessings, we could take this energy and transform it for an even greater purpose. It was a real unification of body, mind and soul beyond the boundaries of country or race and was very, very successful. One of the Yoga Journal bloggers called it a prayer meeting meets a dance club in a church or something like that. People were singing at the top of their voices and dancing in the aisles. The video is online as well as photographs. It was truly amazing to all of us.

RockOm: Perhaps it should be an annual event now.

Gaura: We're working on a Chant4Change on the West Coast, in Los Angeles or San Francisco before the holidays. This event is going to be focused on the other ecstatic traditions, other than kirtan. So we're going to take kirtan, which is India's ecstasy chant and devotion tradition, and we're going to have it meet Sufi music, the Islamic ecstatic chant tradition, and gospel, which is the Christian ecstatic chant tradition. So at least those three traditions are going to come together for an evening of both traditional music from those faiths, as well as joining together to create a totally new unique sound. So that's very exciting.

RockOm: What are the similarities and differences as you lead kirtan in different parts of the world?

Gaura: Each place has its own flavor. Kirtan ultimately is described as like a scrubbing, a cleaning of a heart. Sri Chaitanya [Mahaprabhu] - who is the founder of kirtan as we know it and who brought kirtan to the streets 500 years ago during the first documented non-violent social reform movement in India - brought the chanting out into the streets to erase some of those boundaries like castes and creed and class. He says that the holy names of God, of the divine, have the power to clean the heart. And when the heart becomes clean, we can see. He's comparing it to a mirror, that we can see who we are in relationship to the Divine. A dirty mirror doesn't allow you to see clearly but as you clean it you can see clearly, "Who am I, who is the Lord and what is our relationship?" So the kirtan experience is unique to the individuals and it's unique to their own experience.

In some places our kirtans are very meditative. When we were touring in South Africa, we performed at the Ghandi Hall in Lenasia, near Johannesburg, and it was mostly an older Indian audience. There was not a lot of clapping, not a lot of singing, and we were sweating bullets there on stage. We thought, they don't like it; they hate it. And then afterwards, everyone came up to us and said, "It was so beautiful... you did a fantastic job... we were so touched." It was their way of appreciating, just meditating. Other places, like when we perform in New York City, people will go wild and start dancing like whirling dervishes and it's just intense with people yelling, chanting and laughing. We did a kirtan in South Carolina and I didn't have a drummer, it was just me on the harmonium. It was very, very quiet. People were just singing along very peacefully and, little by little, people started crying just from the depth of their own prayer as we chanted. It's a totally unique experience depending on the mood of our heart or the way we approach chanting.

These names have all the power that the divine Lord and divine world invested in them. Whatever tradition - if you look at the Bible, David says in the Psalms to "make a joyful noise unto the Lord." The chant tradition runs so deep. This Chant4Change that we're tyring to do around the holidays this year is based on the idea that there is one underground river that all of the traditions of the world are drinking from. They're all being fed by this raging river underground which is God's love for us.

RockOm: Let's talk about some of the songs on Ten Million Moons. What prompted you to include the song "Surrender" on an otherwise straightforward kirtan CD?

Gaura: [laughs] Well, that is a question I asked! Kirtan is an expression of the soul calling. The saints and teachers of the kirtan tradition say that we should cry like a child for his mother. Rumi, the Sufi poet from a different tradition, says that we should be like the whining dogs calling for our master. This mood of a genuine heart cry is essential to the kirtan tradition. So the song "Surrender" was my attempt to write a song that does that in a language we're familiar with in English. I really put it out there in a way that people could understand the mood that I'm trying to cultivate in my heart, which is "Lord, make me an instrument." There are so many songs by great saints like the Prayer of Saint Francis, "O Divine Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love." It's a very beautiful prayer and it really embodies what they call a bhakta, someone who's trying to cultivate devotion. And that's what kirtan is all about, bhakti or devotion, and that mood that St. Francis embodies, that was what I was trying to bring to a song.

RockOm: Another great uplifting song is "Sleeping Soul (Jiv Jago)." How did gospel find it's way into kirtan?

Gaura: Like I said, I think gospel, qawwali music, kirtan and other ecstatic music are all the same thing. Not the same in the sense that everyone's exactly the same. Everyone has their own unique differences and it's our differences that create that beautiful diversity. But in the sense that they're all being fed by the same divine source, that underground river. I've grown up my whole life, since before I can remember, doing kirtan so kirtan is in my blood. I think and feel in kirtan. But when I go to a gospel concert, that same energy reverberates in my body and I want to get up and sing and dance and chant, just like I do when I'm in my own temple. They're the same call, that call from the heart to the Lord. "O Lord, make me an instrument. O Lord, bless me and know me. O Divine Lord, let me engage in service and devotion to you." I feel like gospel music is a sister tradition and there are some amazing gospel and Shaker songs that are undeniably personal.

There's this one gospel song that goes, "If you can use anything Lord, you can use me. And if you can use anything Lord, you can use me." And the verses talk about how God inspired David to pick up that little stone and that small stone took down the giant, Goliath. And if he can use that stone, then certainly the stone can use me. Then the chorus comes in again. "If you can use anything Lord, you can use me." So that tradition is really connected to kirtan. When I did "Jiv Jago", which is based on a 100 or 200-year old composition by Bhaktivinoda Thakura, I started hearing these overtones in the background. I would hum lines and then I started hearing this gospel choir. I sat in the studio late one night and found myself singing these gospel lines. I listened to them afterwards and thought, "This is ridiculous. It's 3 o'clock in the morning and that's why I think this sounds good." And so I shut the computer down and then the next day I came back and thought, let me just mix it down and listen to it in my car and see what I think. I thought, my voice sounds ridiculous but there's something here. I started showing it to some of my friends and some of my friends laughed at me. Other friends really loved it and so I thought something has to be here if people are this divided about it. At Chant4Change, C.C. White heard our group perform, heard Acyuta Gopi, our female lead singer, and said, "This is amazing. I want to do something with you guys." And then it hit me like a lightbulb. I said, "C.C., would you be willing to record?" She agreed, came to the studio, took the tracks that I had, redid the leads, added solos and harmonies and used my old tracks to mix our voices together. Though it's only two voices it sounds like an entire gospel choir. She was so sweet and kind and comes from a Christian background.  She's a professional singer who has performed with Ben Harper and some of the great musicians in the world. I told her that I didn't have a lot of money, only a tiny bit I could offer and although she took the check that I gave her, she never cashed it.

RockOm: So our diverse RockOm users should not be afraid of the word kirtan, because even sitting in the pews of a church, they are practicing a form of kirtan?

Gaura: For sure. The word kirtan means "to glorify." It just means to make glory unto the Lord. That's what we're doing in kirtan and that's what most of the traditions already do. I think this is the time for us put aside everything that we disagree on and say, "We could spend an eternity fighting or we could spend an eternity cooperating, uplifting, and empowering each other in whatever way we can." That's what I think is the essence of every "religion" of the world.

RockOm: What are As Kindred Spirits' plans for the future?

Gaura: We're about to go on tour of the left Coast, then to London, then we'll be at Bhakifest. We're touring the Northeast after that, then Australia and South Africa. We are to tie a garland around the world of God's holy names. Aside from that is Chant4Chant around the holidays. All of these things are being put on in cooperation with our brand new record label, Mantralogy. Mantra is a sanskrit word which means to transcend or deliver. It's the idea of sound as a way to uplift and deliver our hearts and minds from our bondage. So Mantralogy is the name of our new record label and the producers of Chant4Change. We're bringing new artists on to our label now starting with an amazing group from South Florida called The Mayapuris. They're a kirtan group who do hip-hop music and pop-rock music. It is a very exciting time for us and for our projects.

www.gauravani.com

www.chant4change.com

www.westcoastkirtanyogafestival.com (BhaktiFest)

www.mantralogy.com

An Interview with Brooklyn Qawwali Party
By Tom Crenshaw, tom@rockom.net

The New York Times says, "Liking Brooklyn Qawwali Party doesn't depend on if you know what Qawwali is. Nor does it depend on how you feel about Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, its most revered practitioner. This is an 11-piece band… that piles texture into Mr. Khan's melodies, ultimately transforming them; it's joyous music, and this band adds all the extra fun and funk it knows." Paying tribute to one of the world’s great vocalists, Brooklyn Qawwali Party formed to honor the legendary Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, reworking his thunderous songs for an eclectic orchestra comprised of groundbreaking jazz musicians. Funky, smart, and loving, BQP captures the joyful spirit of this Pakistani folk music in a unique instrumental blend of jazz and Qawwali that will be sure to get you on your feet and clapping. RockOm recently sat down with Brook Martinez, founder of Brooklyn Qawwali Party to discuss the band’s music, the music of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and their appearance on CBS Television special Faith, Music and Culture.

RockOm: Tell us how Brooklyn Qawwali Party came about.

Brook Martinez: Brooklyn Qawwali Party came about in 2004. In college I had become a fan of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the late great Pakastani Sufi vocalist, who became internationally famous in the '80s and '90s and then died in 1997. Originally I was studying Indian philosophy and Indian music and then I studied jazz and worked at the World Music Institute, which is a non-profit in New York that used to present him before he died. So I had been a fan of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan for a while and I had also been studying jazz in New York and was an active New York jazz musician. Basically, my community of musicians started to pass around a CD of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan without me knowing until they finally came up to me and said, "Hey, have you heard of this guy? He's an amazing singer!" I said, "Of course I've heard of him. I've been listening to him for forever." I didn't know they were interested in that kind of music; I thought they were more interested in Western jazz music. So once I knew that my jazz community was starting to get into him I thought, well this music actually lends itself well or has parallels to jazz music in that it uses simple melodies as platforms for improvisation and it's got a great swinging rhythm similar to jazz. So I thought, well what if we tried playing these melodies themselves - not singing them and not singing the Sufi poetry as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan did - but actually perform them with our own jazz instruments? So I got five of my horn player friends together, percussionists, someone who could play accordion and eventually change that to the harmonium, and guitar and bass and we tried playing the music and it really worked out. That was back in 2004 and we had our first show that summer.

RockOm: What was the original reaction from your musician buddies? Did they think you had lost your mind that you were trying to unite these two fronts?

Brook: No, the initial reaction was "Yes!" One member found out that I had this idea and he was like, "I have to be in this band." They instantly knew this was something special and they basically sought me out for it. I chose people I had wanted but there was even one musician who heard about it from a friend and was like, "Oh, I gotta do that... that would be amazing." And then at the first rehearsal, the first notes we hit, we all sort of knew and looked at each other and said, "This sounds really good." From the start it was really exciting.

RockOm: Is it just about the music for you guys or do you actually subscribe to the Sufi faith and tradition? Is that something you practice?

Brook: Well, my approach to the band was to go from the music into wherever each person is at spiritually and allow the music to move them in that way. Everyone really has their own different spiritual beliefs. None of us are actually practicing Sufis. But the music from its origins is inherently spiritual and Sufism has an openness by saying that it really is about your own intimate relationship with The Higher or the Divine, regardless of your religion or what you believe in. For me personally, it's about the actual experience in the moment of playing that hopefully will move us into different states of good feeling. Original qawwali is really to get into a sort of spiritual trance or higher vibration through the music. So personally I just open myself up to the music and I've had all different experiences with the music - amazing moments as well as moments where I'm just a band leader managing a band. I think that's reality; every note you play can't be an ecstatic high but if you are open to the music then things can happen. I try to keep the music itself in an open enough format where special moments can happen.

RockOm: Particularly now with what's going on in Iran, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and unrest throughout the middle east, how important is it to learn about eastern music?

Brook: Music is just one part of learning about eastern culture and understanding that for the most part, we're all very much the same. Then there are extremes on both ends that we hear about in the news all the time, with the more intense political and religious movements. But from my experience, I get so much positive feedback from Pakistani-Americans and Pakistani people all over the world who have been very happy about this. I think an awareness is coming about in the West about the East and eastern music. The musical CDs are available, you can watch videos on YouTube, and so the information is there and people know that it's good. From my perspective, the political media tries to create the separation and drama, but it's up to the people, from the roots, to understand beyond that. We're all so similar, with our own ethnic flares, but at the core we're all human beings.

RockOm: We had the opportunity to interview the Wailers not too long ago and I had asked that if you knew nothing about Rasta, if the spirituality was transferable through the music. So let me ask you about Qawwali. If we know nothing about the music or spirituality itself, do you think there's an essence in the music that's transferable, creating a spark with the audience where there was none before?

Brook: When Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan brought this music to the international limelight, no one that didn't speak Urdu could understand the lyrics, but he became an international superstar. The essence of the music was coming through, regardless if you could understand the poetry and if you knew the history of it all. We were all moved by his music, not by the beliefs we knew that he had, but more by the more immediate effect of listening to his music which was enlivening to say the least. I was able to take that as the reason we focused specifically on Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, because he was the one who brought this to the international limelight. We felt almost welcome to take his style of the music and play with it. Just understanding him from interviews and from friends of his, he had a very open mind on collaborating with the West. So for us, it's really about that immediate effect which can range from making someone smile, making someone get up and dance (when they may not have that night), making someone feel inner joy by listening to good music or maybe someone having a real experience with it. And that really is up to the listener and where they're at that day or in that moment in their life. You just never know.

RockOm: One thing undeniable about Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's music as well as the music that BQP makes is that you can't really be still and listen to it. You have to move; It creates a vibration that makes me want to move. It's a very proactive music.

Brook: Absolutely. I'm a drummer and I'm moved by rhythm, that's my thing. With Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan or Brooklyn Qawwali Party, it's sort of that the rhythm and how it moves you that is the basis for it all. It was really important to me to choose this music, as opposed to other religious music that I love that can be more solemn, because it's upbeat, joyous, it grooves and has that intensity. We compare it to Western gospel music because it has that real intense energy that's not so focused on the more solemn side of religious chant but on the energized side.

RockOm: Tell us about the CBS television special that the band was featured on. How did that come about?

Brook: The CBS documentary was a 30-minute special called Faith, Music and Culture. They had found out about Brooklyn Qawwali Party through someone in their office that said, "Oh, this would be a good band for that." They sent me an email and said "We're the CBS Religion Unit" - which I never knew existed [laughs] - and said they were doing this thing with a Christian a capella group, Jewish rappers, kirtan and they'd love to do us too. They came and videoed a local show in Brooklyn and it was great.

RockOm: Tell us about your song, "Mustt Mustt."

Brook: This was one of the first songs that we started playing and one of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's most famous songs. It has actually been covered by Massive Attack, who did a collaboration with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan in the early 90's and he's recorded it so many times. In Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's culture it's just a popular number and so it's one we love to play for everyone.

RockOm: What's the future hold for Brooklyn Qawwali Party?

Brook: The future holds a second album, hopefully coming out in the fall. We're also playing at Lincoln Center on August 12th at 7:30 for their free outdoor festival, which it's a great honor to be a part of that festival. We're sharing it with Susheela Raman who is a fantastic singer from India. That's our next big show in New York and we're just looking to do some collaborating with singers as well, which could be really interesting coming up. The future is exciting for us.

www.brooklynqawwaliparty.com

On April 24, 2008 came an unanticipated opportunity to watch and listen to two great contemporary pakistani sufi Qawwali singers at the famous UCLA Royce Hall. The concert was titled, Qawwali Music of Pakistan: Sufi Devotional Music . Among the audience were both Americans and a sub-continental audience. What was striking was Qawwali's ability to transcend language with its sheer power and captivating devotion. The nature of improvisation makes each Qawwali, even if its sung by the same group of singers, very unique and makes every new listening a new experience.

Sometimes the depth of the verses, fused with the presentation, took the audience to an "otherly" high. At other times there were goosebumps and surges with the strong emotion that is created in Qawwali performance. The Sufi Qawwalis are considered as zikr or Divine remembrance if listened to with spiritual understanding and depth.

:: What is Sufi Qawwali? | Qawwali is derived from the Arabic word qaul, literally meaning "saying" but has taken on the meaning of "belief"or "credo" in South Asian languages. Qawwali is spiritual in essence; it is the devotional music of the Sufis to attain trance and mystical experience - originating in the 10th century and blossoming into its present form from the 13th century onwards.

Strong voices and explosive hand-clapping characterize the devotional music known as Qawwali. An ensemble of (usually) twelve performers conveys a spiritual message through music and song based on mystic poetry by Sufi masters. The texts usually deal with divine love (‘ishq ), the sorrow of separation (hijr, firaq ), and the union (visal ) - all concepts which are symbolically reinforced and illustrated by the music. Qawwali blends Iranian and Central Asian poetic, philosophical, and musical elements into a North Indian base, combining popular music with classical traditions.

:: History | Qawwali is inseparable from the name of a Persian court musician, composer, poet, and mystic of that period: Amir Khusrau (1254–1325). Amir Khusrau experimented with musical forms, combining the Indian and the Persian, the Hindu Bhakti and the Muslim Sufi to produce the present form of Qawwali.

Qawwali thus became a popular expression of Muslim devotion open to all faiths throughout Northern India. This form of music rapidly became a vehicle for the Islamic missionary movement in India, while at the same time reinforcing the faith of the Muslims. In many cases, the original Persian mystical text is followed by a translation in the local idiom sung in the same manner as the original. Still in this time, Qawwali remains an expanding form of music enjoying universal popularity in South Asia and beyond.

:: Setting | Although Qawwali has today become part of mainstream music, it is traditionally a part of Sufi ritual at the shrine of a saint on a Thursday evening. Large gatherings of Qawwali are held at the death anniversaries of Sufi saints, in which their death is celebrated as marriage with the Eternal (‘urs ). Qawwali groups play day and night, with the best performing at the end.

Qawwalis are heard by "the friends" (a term denoting members of Sufi orders) and by lay audiences attracted by the occasion. Drawing and holding the attention of a heterogeneous audience is the skill that the performers of Qawwali attain. They claim that Qawwali breaks the barriers of language and draws people closer to divinity. They do this by attempting to alter the state of consciousness of the audience in order to make them more receptive to the content, which is of a syncretistic and mystical nature.

Interestingly, the UCLA concert, too, was also scheduled on a Thursday night, which traditionally is designated in Islam as holy night. Pure Qawwali has the quality of Zikr or Divine Remembrance.

:: About Mehr Ali and Sher Ali, the Artists | Mehr and Sher Ali were born in the Pakistani border-town of Kasur in the early 1950s and received their earlier training in classical music from their father, a court classical singer. Their father then became the disciple of Fateh Ali Khan, the father of the famous Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and young Sher Ali was the student of Bakhshi Salamat Ali Qawwal. Mehr Ali and Sher Ali thus acknowledge that the family of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is their "Ustad Gharana" or "Teacher House," a term imbued with veneration among musician circles in Pakistan and North India. The music of this group has its origins with the Talvandi classical school of Hindustani music.

Mehr Ali was taught by Muhammad Ali Fareedi, an ordained Sufi qawwal of the shrine of the 13th century Sufi, Baba Farid. Mehr Ali was thus trained in Sufi philosophy, poetry, texts, and rituals. All qawwals must have a deep knowledge of Sufi poetic texts. The group feels that their music brings harmony and peace to the soul and projects the message of love and unity for all. "We sometimes go into a trance during our performance, so moved are we by the text and music," says Mehr Ali. They believe that qawwali goes beyond the limitations of orthodox religion and is a universal invitation to all living beings to share in the feelings of the powerful emotion of pure love, the pain of separation, and the joy of union.

I have also uploaded a badly captured video from this concert @ Royce Hall to YouTube: Check it here .

___

Sufi Qawwali from "Inspirations and Creative Thoughts" (http://mysticsaint.blogspot.com ). This post was originally posted to this blog on April 26, 2008 .