RockOm

By Howard Cohen, RightSide Solutions

RockOm alum Mickey Hart discusses sounds from space with “The Universe: Pulsars & Quasars” scheduled to air on The History Channel, Tuesday, October 27th at 9:00 PM. Please check your local listings for details and set your TiVo/DVR now!

During The Dead’s Spring Tour, Mickey Hart debuted the "Universe Of Sound". Each night of the tour Hart connected audiences with the universe's most celestial vibrations from the Big Bang to the rings of Saturn to the black hole. Hart said, “The idea was to take our audience on a nightly tour of some part of our universe during our 'space concerto' section. The next day we put it up on our website so the kids could follow it.” This got the interest of the folks at the History Channel who produce the acclaimed “The Universe” series. They came out to Hart’s studio and spent an afternoon doing interviews for the segment being produced on pulsars and quasars.

Hart is known for his high quality recordings of music from around the globe and his collaborations with the world’s great percussionists. His Grammy Award winning Planet Drum (1991 Best World Music) and Global Drum Project (2008 Best Contemporary World Music) featured the finest acoustic percussion, enhanced with the latest audio processing and editing technologies. As he begins to record his next project, the frontier of space inspires Mickey's compositions and he is thrilled to be collaborating with a number of the world's leading astronomers and astrophysicists along with his Global Drum Project band mates, Zakir Hussain, Giovanni Hidalgo and Sikiru Adepoju in creating other worldly music emanating from a universe of sound.

Connecting the arts and sciences is another piece of Hart’s latest works. Mickey hopes to inspire the next generations and feels it is essential that young people understand the science of their times. He strongly supports the Obama administration’s STEM initiatives to prepare the next generation in science, technology, engineering, and math. Mickey has been a pioneer in supporting engineering for the arts including the development of field recording systems, loudspeaker arrays, and has made various appearances at AES (Audio Engineering Society) conventions.

Please find a brief of the show on The History Channel Website

www.mickeyhart.net

SEE ALSO: RockOm's interview with Mickey - "If There's a Creator, It's a Rhythm"

Photo: Jay Blakesberg ©2009

A round-table discussion with Shantala
By Tom Crenshaw and Trevor Harden

Benjy and Heather Wertheimer are simply two of the most amazing and dedicated artists RockOm has had the opportunity to meet. Both lead kirtan (sacred chanting) worldwide as the duo Shantala (sometimes as a trio with Brent Kuecker) with soul-stirring vocals, sacred lyrics and exotic instrumentation. Shantala has performed and recorded internationally with such sacred music luminaries as RockOm alums Krishna Das and Jai Uttal, as well as with Deva Premal & Miten and others. In summer 2008, they were named as one of the top "Wallahs to Watch" by Yoga + Joyful Living.

Heather Wertheimer is a singer, songwriter and guitarist who combines her special love of both music and yoga to lead devotional chanting for yoga workshops and spiritual gatherings internationally. Heather's debut CD with Shantala, Church of Sky, was named by New Age Retailer as one of the top ten albums of 2004. It has been aired on radio stations nationwide. In April 2003, she and Benjy released The Love Window, a beautiful and well-loved collection of sacred chants. In 2007, they released Sri, their second popular kirtan CD, and their first live CD LIVE in love was released in 2008.

Benjy Wertheimer is an award-winning songwriter, vocalist, composer and multi-instrumentalist (playing tabla, congas, percussion, esraj, guitar, and keyboards). Benjy has toured and recorded with such artists as  Krishna Das, Jai Uttal, Deva Premal & Miten, Walter Becker (Steely Dan), and virtuoso guitarist Michael Mandrell. He has opened for such artists as Carlos Santana, Paul Winter and Narada Michael Walden. A founding member of the internationally acclaimed Ancient Future world fusion music ensemble, Benjy also toured the U.S., Canada and Japan with renowned bamboo flute master G.S. Sachdev. He has studied Indian classical music for over 25 years with some of the greatest masters of that tradition (including Alla Rakha, Zakir Hussain, Ali Akbar Khan and Z. M. Dagar). Benjy's CDs receive extensive airplay around the world and his CD Circle of Fire went to #1 on the New Age radio charts in November 2002.

RockOm recently sat down with Benjy, Heather, Brent and Kelley Boyd (owner of Savannah Yoga Center in Savannah, GA) for an informal round-table discussion on kirtan, yoga, Eastern music, the evolution of kirtan and sacred music, and much more.

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Tom: Shantala just recently came from Bhakti Fest [a yoga and music festival in Joshua Tree, CA]. Tell us about your experience.

Benjy: It felt like a milestone that marked the beginning of a different level of engagement of people in this country with bhakti yoga. A lot of people were only half jokingly referring to Bhakti Fest as the Woodstock of kirtan. There's this critical mass that's being reached that is moving towards shifting the consciousness of a lot of people in this country. It was an incredible honor to be there. Bhakti Fest is a place where history is being made as far as bhakti yoga. We’ve been to a lot of yoga festivals with a lot of people present and the focus is very much on asana. In this case it was very clear the focus was on kirtan.

Heather: I don’t know how many kirtan artists where there. Some of them were well known, some weren't and some of the most well known artists weren't there. The feeling at Bhakti Fest was fantastic, so good natured, calm and friendly as well as peaceful and loving.

Tom: Yeah, we looked online and saw some photographs of the events and it seemed so intimate.

Heather: It felt personal.

Benjy: It sure did.

Tom: When and how did you two form Shantala?

Benjy: Probably as many people know us as Benjy and Heather as they do Shantala, but now that Brent is with us it really feels like we have a special kind of synergy that we’ve been able to grow over time. Now we’re writing chants together.

Tom: And Brent gets to help with Barkley [Benjy and Heather's dog].

Heather: Barkley is our inspiration.

Brent: Barkley does everything really. Everything is a manifestation of Barkley. We're just pawns. [Laughter]

Heather: We're just servants of Barkley. [Laughter]

Benjy: I was thinking I should change my name to Barkley-Das. [Laughter] It is quite interesting though, Barkley is a very important part of what we do because every day we are reminded of bhakti through him because his love is so absolute. I think there is something we can all learn through the love of a dog. It is really unswerving and truly unconditional. Secondly, very much what is at the heart of bhakti yoga for me is being in the moment and I can't think of anyone who is a better teacher of that than a dog.  It's [about] 'right here, right now'; not what's happening tomorrow, not what happened a few days ago. It's 'right here, right now'.

Brent: You know how dogs love you no matter what you've done to them? It's kind of the same way that Heather talks about when we're in kirtan that no matter what we think about ourselves while we're practicing kirtan Ma is always loving you no matter what, and when you get a glimpse of that you start feeling better.

Heather: We begin to focus more and more on the force of grace and everything that's holding us. It's so easy to step from your normal funky world of being lost in your thoughts and riding the ups and downs of your thoughts, your latest emotional swing and it's just one easy step to have a total awareness of grace with you. That's an important part of this practice that we're able to make this step into contact with a realm of beauty and sacredness and joy.

But back to your question - how did we get started in Kirtan? People just asked us to do it. I was doing some things as a singer-songwriter; that was an important part of my life. Benjy had been full time in music and had an extensive Indian classical background, so when we got together and I was teaching yoga we began to be very involved in the Anusara yoga community. Benjy played for savasana on the esraj for John Friend and John fell in love. The short story is John Friend exposed Krishna Das to Benjy's esraj music and Krishna Das invited Benjy to perform on his Breath of the Heart album. Krishna Das discovered Benjy also plays tabla so when Krishna Das needed a fill-in tabla player he called on Benjy to come to the Inner Harmony Yoga Retreat Center with John Friend. We did that for a couple of years. I just tagged along. I was a yoga teacher; I just wanted to do yoga with John and it was a bonus to be able to sing with Krishna Das. We would fill in when Krishna Das wasn't available and ended up doing music for savasana. Then people started asking us to chant and we had no idea… or intention to go down that path. Once we started, we fell in love with it.

Benjy: I feel in a very real way we were guided. It was almost like we didn't have a choice. We kept encountering circumstances starting with meeting John Friend back in 2000, going into this thing with Krishna Das and falling in love with the practice of kirtan completely, and finding place after place where that was the best way we could serve. As for my own religious background, I'm a Quaker, but I feel there's no dissonance between my Quaker roots and what I’m celebrating, especially from a Hindu-tantric perspective, which is the realm John Friend works in. There's this beautiful melding of [my Quaker roots with Hindu-tantric] and in the kirtan it’s a part of this celebratory element of yoga that's at the heart of a lot of the tantric practice.

It's quite incredible too that at this point, 32 years ago I started my practice of yoga but not asana yoga. Everyone thinks of asana right away when they think of yoga but my teachers, Ali Akbar Khan and Zakir Hussain would refer to it as nada yoga: the yoga of sacred vibration and sound. It's considered a very high yoga going back to some very ancient texts. In the process of learning from Heather when she was a yoga teacher and from John, I stated to see how this could all come together with nada yoga side by side with bhakti yoga in the kirtan practice. That's a very big part of what we always hoped to be able to share with people.

Tom: Benjy, you grew up playing classical music starting with piano?

Benjy: That's right. Yeah, my very first instrument starting at age five was piano. My parents tell me I was singing before I could talk. I played violin as well, my interest shifted, and I later started studying flamenco guitar.

Tom: How did your study gravitate towards Eastern Music?

Benjy: Well before I started studying piano my mother told me I used to always bug her to keep playing Babatunde Olatunji's Drums of Passion. She literally wore it out. I was very much into African drumming and by junior high school I was studying Afro-Cuban drumming. In my high school years I came into contact with Indian classical percussion and it just blew me away. I had never seen anything like it and I realize, particularly when I saw the one who was going to become my guru on tablas - Zakir Hussain - when I saw him play what he could do with these two little drums was way beyond what I could ever imagine. So I knew that's where I wanted to go. As soon as I could after high school I went out to California where Zakir Hussain was living so I could study with him.

Trevor: If Drums of Passion hadn't been made we wouldn't have anything to talk about! [Laughter] Because most every single person we talk with talks about how instrumental that album was.

Benjy: Oh, there's no doubt!

Heather: [Without Olatunji's influence] so much music would have never made it over to this part of the world probably!

Tom: What's the hardest thing for Western musicians to grasp about Eastern music?

Benjy: One of the things is cultural. In Western culture, music is seen as a diversion or a source of entertainment, whereas in Indian classical music it is a spiritual path. I think some people have difficulty finding ways to reconcile themselves with that and the expectation of the sadhana of that path is mind-blowing. As an example my guru in the raga side of things, Ali Akbar Khan, would play or practice music 14-18 hours a day over the period of decades. It's very hard for us to even imagine that level of sadhana in our culture. Part of it too is because there's a very different orientation; there's a way we have to make our way in the world, or I guess you could call it a renunciation of sorts because you have to renounce the world to a degree to engage in that level of practice. What's interesting is that it's not renouncing the Divine, in fact you are trying to engage yourself fully with that essence of sound, which Ali Akbar Khan did so beautifully, which Zakir Hussain and his father Alla Rakha (who was Ravi Shankar's tabla player) did as well. They embodied the essence of the soul of music because they focused so strongly on that.

Tom: Heather, what are the unspoken elements between musicians while you're performing kirtan? What transpires that is unspoken? How do you communicate with each other while you're performing?

Heather: Well, we've spent so much time together that we're basically joined at the hip. [Laughter] But I think that we have a common purpose as performing musicians in kirtan, which is we are supporting the energy of the group to move in particular directions, to help people have a deepening experience throughout the course of the kirtan. So we have an energetic wave that we're riding together and we're all supporting that wave. There are times that we want [the music] to move slow, deep and more inward and there are times we want [the music] to come into a much higher energetic state and we  know approximately when that is going to happen, but it's a little bit different every time. Musically, Brent takes his cues off of what I'm singing but occasionally we have an eye contact that we make that we know we're going to switch parts. I use that eye-cue;  Benjy and I just look at each other and we know we’re going to do another repeat. Occasionally I'll mouth one word to him but it doesn't happen very often. We're also very connected to each other. We've done this so much that we know what's going to happen and we all have a sense of where it needs to go and where it should go.

Tom: So Benjy, if Heather is entranced in a part and you know she is in a blissful state but you feel it may need to go in another direction, how do you judge what needs to happen and make a change?

Brent: You don't ever take the women out of her bliss! [Laughter]

Heather: No, he doesn’t have control of that. I do! [Laughter] But we do have subtle ways that we all push the tempo or slow down slightly.

Benjy: I have a deep sense of trust to Heather's connection this practice, so generally speaking I’m going to go with the flow that I feel happening there. That said, the degree of acceleration at any point is up to me; I'm driving it as the drummer in many cases and so figuring out where that next level  should be is kinda up to me…

Heather: Yes it is…

Benjy: …And these two follow me in that. Sometimes I'm leading the chants too. There's a couple of high-energy chants that I lead and I have to figure out where that energy is for me. It's a dance. The other thing is that if Heather is going into a blissful state it is almost always accompanied by a similar state on the part of those participating in the kirtan. They are really coming into this synchronized way of being with each other. They are really tuned in and Heather is tuning into a kind of energy… I know if she's going there the group is following in her wake and I don't want to mess that up. It's such a different mindset because of the participatory elements and because it is a co-creation in a very real way with the group present.

A lot of the kind of things you would see in a performance doesn't really apply [to kirtan]. There are times I want to bring in elements of Indian classical music - for example a tabla solo - or something that's played on the esraj that is mirroring a raga that I know well. Or if we have other great Indian musicians playing with us, which we're blessed to have sometimes, to give them a moment to completely shine out in the middle of the kirtan because to me it's all part of that same expression of divine sound and devotion.

Heather: Also, we all three have a talk every day about what we're going to do for our set list. We'll talk about that for a while and then sometimes we'll often end up changing it mid-stream. The other night we were thinking of keeping the kirtan more down-tempo, but when we got into the up-tempo part Benjy said, "Let's do another up chant," because that was going to serve the group better. So we all talk about it.  Anything you want to add Brent?

Brent: I think there's really one word and you touched on it a couple of times; it's all about service. I feel like, what can I do to serve directly first and foremost with what is happening with Benjy and Heather and us, as a whole, and the energy in the room? I usually play with my eyes closed so I'm mostly feeling the room as opposed to seeing the room. I feel like I can get a lot more information that way. See, it's like this… Kirtan is like a bliss-bus [laughter], no… no… dig this. Benjy is the drummer, as like the engine and the gas pedal; I’m the bass player so I'm the wheels, keeping it going; and Heather is the driver. Everybody in the room are the passengers and they're just singing on the bus. [Laughter]

Heather: That's a great way to put it! We’ll have to use that for our next tour, The Bliss Bus Tour. [Laughter]

Trevor: One of our "go-to" questions we ask a lot of people just to get their different perspectives is, "What is it about music that connects us with the Divine in a way that other things don’t?"

Benjy: There's a term that comes to us from an ancient text that embodies it completely: Nada Brahma, which is basically translated as Sound is God. The nada yoga is your effort to go so deeply into that ocean of sound, through music, that you connect with all the auspicious principles of the Divine in the music and it is considered in many occasions to be completely beyond words. The second part of it is that because music does not necessarily require words, the raw music itself, that vibration is something you can feel regardless of the language you speak in your day-to-day life. It truly is a universal language. You can evoke feelings in people at a very, very deep level almost instantaneously with music. For me, the highest compliment I could give anyone who does a soundtrack for a movie is that you don't notice it because it is so perfectly integrated with what is going on that it doesn’t stand out on its own. It's a part of an integral whole. In that way too, music can be a soundtrack for our love and devotion to the Divine.

Heather: I would add that when we’re making music it vibrates our whole body, it resonates inside of us. It resonates in the heart area and as you know, it also releases chemicals [and causes] interactions in the brain.

Benjy: There’s a wonderful book out called This Is Your Brain On Music that is actually from a neuro-scientific vantage point about what happens in the brain when people are engaged in either playing or listening to music. To grossly oversimplify it one of the points is there is no other activity outside of being engaged in music that engages more parts of the brain simultaneously.

Trevor: Speaking to what you just said about music engaging different parts of the brain and enhancing other activities, there is some debate about asana practice and whether or not you should accompany it with music. What are your general thoughts on this?

Heather: I’d like to get Kelley's [Boyd, owner of Savannah Yoga Center] opinion on that. Kelley?

Kelley Boyd: It goes right back to what Heather and Benjy were talking about which is the practice feels totally different when there is music playing. Sometimes some moments do call for no music. There's plenty going on internally. I think that music is a beautiful addition to an asana practice. You can engage people in a different kind of way with music in their practice depending on the songs that you play, the message you want to convey to your students. I've heard of stories where students listen to a particular kind of song for 10-20 years and then they heard it in a yoga class and they picked up on specific words and it really opens something up for them.

Heather: Brent teaches yoga as well. Anything you want to add about yoga and music Brent?

Brent: I don't use music, except for savasana yoga. For me I would love to have musicians in the room playing with me and reading the energy of the room, supporting what is happening. So often I find unless I've spent hours and hours on a play list it's not in sync with the mood or actions in the class that I am intending and feeding. It’s a personal thing. I don't want to be teaching something that is more introspective and have some rockin' music just because the play list didn't happen to sync up.

Benjy: One of the great blessings in our lives is that for a decade or so now Heather and I have been providing live accompanying music for John Friend's yoga classes with as many as 800 people in a class. He is like a conductor and we are this orchestra that needs to be able to stop on a dime. For example if he needs to stop and give a technical instruction we are happy to stop playing because it would be totally distracting. If the flow changes we need to be able to turn and completely shift that.

Tom: Where are you going as a group and as individuals? What does the future hold?

Heather: We have a really fun and meaningful focus coming up for our 2010 tour in many cities across North America. We’re going to be doing events that we're going to be calling "Unity in the Community" which means we're going to be bringing together different groups at yoga centers, different non-profit groups and church groups to work together to do fund raising for local and regional charity causes. We love doing fund raising events and helping others through our events. For example, we sold handmade African necklaces for about a year and raised $17,000 for Ugandan women and children. So it's really powerful what you can do in the course of your offerings.

Brent: I'd just like to close by offering one thing. What kirtan is and what we're doing is truly an experience of the heart because you don't get done listening to any kind of music and say, "Wow, that just made my brain feel good." You don’t hear that. People say they actually felt something [in kirtan]. We are transported into our heart and what we find there is good, blissful, amazing. What we can say by this on a universal perspective is that at the essence of our self and at our heart there is just goodness.

Heather: I agree and to add to your really good question Trevor about how music gets us closer to the Divine. I think part of it is when you come together with a common intention, as groups and as individuals, we can consciously create that experience together and it's beautiful. We're just opening a doorway into something that can sweep us along. It's really beautiful.

Trevor: And that communal aspect is representative of a Divine thing going on because it's bringing people together.

Benjy: For sure.

Heather: Absolutely. That's why it was so powerful at Bhakti Fest with 2500 people coming together with a common intention. I really believe it ripples out into the world.

Benjy: Can you imagine what it's going to be like in 10 years? I am really excited to see what is happening. Culturally as asana [hatha] yoga has taken hold here in this country and you see many styles represented many of them are very new even though some of the yoga practices go back 5000 years. There are new practices being invented every day.  We’re finding in kirtan a complete expansion of the definition of the term. That is happening in large part because of the melting pot culture that we're part of here in the States whereas someone [elsewhere] may not know how to deal with mantra or how to celebrate in kirtan but they totally resonate with reggae. It's like the opening of a doorway that many people might not have known and that's part of what we hope to facilitate in what we do. There are so many different kinds of kirtan now available for people. It's really exploding and I think it's a beautiful opportunity for more and more and more people to find that connection to the Divine.

LINKS:

www.shantalamusic.com

Shantala Amazon link to latest CD available on Amazon

An interview with Airto Moreira
By Tom Crenshaw, tom@RockOm.net

Airto Moreira is one of the most endearing and influential percussionists in the world today. Born in South Brazil he began playing percussion even before he could walk. By the time he was six years old Airto had won many music contests by singing and playing percussion. He moved to Sao Paulo at the age of sixteen and performed regularly in nightclubs and television as a percussionist, drummer and singer.

In 1965 he met the singer Flora Purim in Rio de Janeiro. Flora moved to the USA in 1967 with Airto following shortly after and began playing with musicians such as Reggie Workman, JJ Johnson, Cedar Walton and bassist Walter Booker. It was through Booker that Airto began playing with the greats - Cannonball Adderley, Lee Morgan, Paul Desmond and Joe Zawinul to name a few.

Mr. Moreira's impact in the drumming world has been so powerful that Downbeat Magazine added the category of Percussion to its readers' and critics' polls in 1973 because of his work. Airto has gone on to win this award over twenty times since then. In the past few years he was been voted the number one percussionist by Jazz Times, Modern Drummer, Drum Magazine, Jazzizz Magazine, Jazz Central Station's Global Jazz Poll on the Internet, as well as in many European, Latin American and Asian publications.

Airto Moreira has been advancing the cause of world and percussion music as a member of the Planet Drum percussion ensemble alongside The Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Heart, master conga player Giovanni Hidalgo, tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, Flora Purim, Babatunde Olatunji, Sikiru Adepoju and Vikku Vinayakram. Airto has contributed to two Grammy Award-winning projects, the album Planet Drum, which won in 1991 in the World Music category, as well as his work with the Dizzy Gillespie's United Nations Orchestra, which received the award for Best Live Jazz Album.

In September of 2002, Brazil's President Fernando Henrique Cardoso named Airto Moreira and Flora Purim to the Order of Rio Branco, one of Brazil's highest honors. The Order of Rio Branco was created in 1963 to formally recognize Brazilian and foreign individuals who have significantly contributed to the promotion of Brazil's international relations.

Also, Airto was a professor for three years at the Ethnomusicology department of UCLA and broke new ground in musical concepts and creative energy.

Currently he divides his time between recording studios, workshops and clinics, and creating new projects as well as researching new materials for future releases and live performances in the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America.

Airto's latest album is Life After That and was released on Narada Records.

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Tom: Tell us about your parents, especially your father who was a spiritual healer. Did your father influence you musically?

Airto: No, not really. It probably has nothing to do with the music. There was no music. My parents didn't sing, dance, or play. [Laughs] My father was a spiritist. He, along with about 10 other mediums, would sit around a table and get in touch with the spirits and the spiritual world. They would talk to the spirits and solve problems for people. The medium, acting as a bridge between the spirit and material world, would talk with the spirit of the person and straighten a lot of things up because there's a lot of people who [after they die] feel good about their [past] lives, but most of us, we don’t. We feel like we wasted a lot of time in our life. We feel, "I shouldn’t have done that," or "maybe I should have done this instead of that." We keep those problems and other problems after life. When I say "after life," I mean after our material life. As spirits, we are immortals. We never die; we just spend some time around the spiritual world (which is actually right here) and is the universe. It's God's universe that he is creating. We might have to come back here to solve some problems we left and to learn to do other things and so on.

When I was about five years old I used to watch my father. We weren't supposed to watch but we watched anyway. [Laughs] I saw my father many times writing prescriptions for people. Some of the things he used to prescribe for others to take were from nature, from the forest. Other things he would write were to be taken from a pharmacy. He used to work with a spirit of a deceased doctor who had died 20 years earlier. My father was illiterate. He couldn't read or write but I saw him writing many times. Later on in his life he had diabetes and he lost his vision and was a blind man for about the last 10 years of his life. But he was completely happy! It was really beautiful to see that - the spiritual part of my family.

My sister does a lot of what my father used to do. She learned a lot from him. She is beautiful and happy as well. When others see her they say, "Wow, she is so nice!"

Now talking about death and music, I am in some ways a medium. I also make the bridge between the spiritual and material world. When I play, I do that. The musicians who play with me - including my wife, Flora [Purim] - they know when that comes on me and it's just a beautiful thing. We are helped by the spirits. The music becomes high as far as energy. It doesn't have to be a very fast kind of rhythm. Whatever we do is really rich in energy - universal energy that keeps all the planets and stars together and balanced. This energy is around us too; it's the primal energy that God uses to create the universe. The more you study the more you know. It's not a complicated thing; it's basic, really. I feel the energy when I change, when I am playing something and right at the beginning when it actually happens. I open up for whatever energy is there and then something happens; it clicks and the whole band knows. We look at each other, laugh and smile and we keep playing. It's a beautiful thing, man.

Tom: It seems you were bound for great things as a musician from early on. You had your own radio program in your home city as a preteen and then at 13 you began drumming and singing in local dance bands. Where did this drive, this passion for music come from?

Airto: I don’t know because we didn't have that many musicians in our family. My mother's side of the family was from Italy. I always loved music and I started playing some percussion instruments that my grandmother gave to me and that was it. I just kept playing. My mom gave me other percussion instruments and I just kept playing. This is what I do today; I keep doing the same thing that I use to do when I was a little kid. Now I have a lot of knowledge about different kinds of music - commercial, non-commercial, playing for money or not. Thank God I don't have to play for money. I did when I was younger but if the music wasn't good, if I didn't like it, I didn't play.

Tom: Your wife Flora moved to the USA in 1967 and you followed soon thereafter. Was that a move you intended to make no matter what or were you waiting to see what Flora discovered as far as the music scene was concerned before you decided to leave?

Airto: I had a plan, you see. I was in love with Flora. Really in love with Flora, mainly because she was a fine human being and she had a good education. She was from a family in Rio and I was from a family in South Brazil and we were very poor in our little village. When I met Flora I had never met a woman like her before. She was incredible! She was like a princess. She liked me and we started taking. It was like “Wow.” In the beginning the only thing I would talk to her about would be music. [Laughs] We used to talk a lot about music; she was a singer already. I was thinking this is something very, very special - this is incredible. I couldn’t believe it. We stayed together two years and she decided to go to the States and spend some time there, meet some people, say hello to her friends from Rio who were already there like Sivuca [Dias de Oliveira] who played accordion and was musical director for Miriam Makeba (a great African singer) and Sérgio Mendes. She told me, "I'm going to go and try and sing for a while. I'm really not sure what is going to happen." I said, "Well, I can't go right now. I’m playing with this great band, the New Quartet, and we're successful." I told her I was sorry but I couldn't go.

She went anyway, so we would write to each other. Sometimes we would talk on the phone, but we would write every day. I was so much in love with this woman that I decided to go to California, stay for a couple of weeks, and then bring her back to Brazil. So, I went - and here I am! I'm not in Brazil. [Laughs] Of course, we went back to Brazil often. I don't like the word "career" because I think music is much more than career - music is a lifetime commitment.

Tom: Who were the first musicians you met upon arriving in the states?

Airto: I met Moacir Santos, who was a master teacher from Brazil and a great arranger and tenor saxophonist. I did some gigs with him and studied with him, but not enough. I never really liked study. Unfortunately I can't read music. I started playing in LA with some Brazilian bands and then Flora was invited to go New York to sing with Miriam Makeba.  A few days after Flora went to New York, I followed her there and we lived in New York for almost nine years.

It was in New York that I met everybody. I met Cannonball Adderley and we liked each other so much, even though we didn't understand each other. I was speaking Portuguese and he was speaking English. He was our mentor and sponsor in the states and signed our working papers and told his manager, "I want Airto and Flora here legally." I started playing with Cannonball, Lee Morgan and Paul Desmond. Then everything started to happen.

Two and a half years later I met Miles Davis. I met Miles through Joe Zawinul, who was very close friends with Miles.  One day Miles said to Joe, "Joe, I’m recording this album - a new kind of music. It’s more electric. I need a percussionist that plays something different." Joe said to Miles, "Well I know somebody that I met at Walter Booker's house." Miles asked Joe what kind of person I was - if I was old, young, or what. Joe told Miles, "He's kind of young, but he has some incredible percussion instruments that no one's seen before. He plays them all, plays jazz, bossa nova, samba; he plays anything. He's able to hear something and just play it." So, I started playing with Miles and recorded Bitches Brew with him.

Tom: Did you believe Bitches Brew was going to be the phenomenon it became?

Airto: No. I knew practically nothing. It was all like a dream to me, a movie that I was in. Everything was happening and I didn't speak English. I came to understand English better soon after. The first three years was like I was on an acid trip and being in a crazy movie. It was a very strange feeling; I was not afraid at all. It was like I knew these musicians for a long time and we were just going to play some music - that was it. All the other musicians warned me about Miles and said, "Listen, Miles can be real nasty but go and play with him. He's going to like you. But never get into any kind of negative stuff with him because he likes to play with you and try and scare you." I was careful in that area. I had two and a half years with Miles. One of the greatest experiences in my life.

Tom: The sidemen on Bitches Brew were extraordinary: Wayne Shorter, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, and Chick Corea.

Airto: Yeah, I played for probably a year and a half with those guys. Then Miles started changing the sound. He wanted to get into the "funk/wah-wah" thing. He loved Jimi Hendrix actually. They were going to do an album together. Gil Evans was going to write the arrangements but it never happened because Jimi died. Yeah, we used to go down to the Village in New York with Miles, into Jimi Hendrix's Electric Lady Studios and jam there. Miles would be talking with Jimi about the wah-wah pedal; He was crazy about it. He wanted to use it with the trumpet.

Tom: Following your stint with Miles Davis, you jumped right into Weather Report with Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, Miroslav Vitous and Alphonse Mouzon.

Airto: Actually it was during my time with Miles. I was still playing with Miles when Joe Zawinul invited me to form the band. Joe said, "This is going to be the best group in the world. You’re going to play with us." But I told him, "I'm still playing with Miles. Some people are leaving the band and I think Miles needs me." Joe said, "No, Miles doesn't need anybody. Come and play with us." It wasn't that I was skeptical about Weather Report, I just didn't want to leave Miles' band. I wanted to go into that change with him and give him my sounds and soul. I never went on the road with Weather Report. I recorded with them and I played one concert at CBS for the release of our first album on CBS Records. I told Joe after that concert that I was not going to leave Miles.

Tom: In our interview with your wife, Flora gave us her thoughts of Chick Corea and Return to Forever. I want to hear from you about your experience with Chick and Return To Forever. You all pretty much made history in this band.

Airto: Chick had a drummer before me. But he asked Flora to ask me to come in on the next rehearsal they had so I could show some patterns to his drummer and I said, "Sure." I met them all, met the drummer and showed him some stuff. The drummer asked me to take a break with him, go next door to a bar and have a drink. When we got next door he said to me, "Do you want to play this gig with Chick?" I said, "Yeah, I want to play drums for Chick but you're already playing with him." "I’m a jazz drummer; I don’t want to play this gig," he said. I told him, "Well, we have to talk with Chick because he never really invited me to play with him." So we went back to the practice and the drummer said to Chick, "Chick, Airto and I were just talking and you've got a new drummer." [Laughs]

Tom: When we interviewed Mickey Hart and spoke with him about the Planet Drum album and his intention in recording it he said he realized on day he was "sitting on top of the mountain" with regards to his percussion friends. You and Flora joined him on the Planet Drum album and were in fact co-producers, along with the other musicians performing on the album. What are your thoughts on how this all came to be?

Airto: Flora and I met Mickey Hart with the Grateful Dead. We went to see the Dead one time at the Oakland Coliseum just to see what everyone was talking about with this band. That was some "down to earth" music: singing, playing and tripping. It was a big party with thousands of people! Flora and I went backstage after the concert and they were like, "Oh, Airto and Flora!" They invited us to perform with them the next two nights, to jam with them. Ornette Coleman was sitting in with them, playing this crazy stuff on saxophone. Flora picked up a microphone and started singing with Ornette Coleman, doing free-form stuff, really beautiful stuff. That's how we met Mickey. Mickey then called me and Flora to play on the Apocalypse Now soundtrack and we worked in the Dead’s studio in Marin County for six days and nights straight.

Tom: Was this the first time you had worked with Zakir Hussain?

Airto: Yes. [Pause] Maybe I played with him in the Rhythm Devils. I wasn't a part of that group; I just sat in with them. Apocalypse Now was the first time we collaborated and it was just beautiful. Zakir is one of the most incredible players on earth.

Tom: We agree, but I must add that when we spoke with Zakir Hussain last year in San Anselmo one of the first things he spoke about was Bitches Brew and how that was so inspirational to him and everyone, and how it changed everything. He was taken with your work as well.

Airto: Zakir told me he was a classical percussionist playing classical Hindu music, and that's what he did. Then he saw me play with Miles Davis and said, "Wow, I can do that too. I can play some other stuff." Zakir can do anything, really. He's an incredible musician. Then Zakir started opening up, playing with different people. He's one of the most respected musicians in the world.

Tom: Tell me about your album The Other Side of This, from 1988. It was an exploration into the healing powers of music and the spiritual world.

Airto: I always have ideas for sound. I have a lot of ideas for things I haven't played yet. I am young; I'm only 67. [Laughs] Some of the sounds I had been thinking about for many years were sounds for healing, for relaxing and for energy. I never really thought of myself as a shaman to be working with spirits. Spirits are free to come and visit when I am playing and each day when I jump in, they are welcome.

One day when were working on Planet Drum with Mickey and all the great percussionists who performed on that album I said to Mickey, "Remember that project that we talked about of co-producing, that healing music album?" He was about to head out of town and said, "Why don't you start it while I'm gone." So, I stayed in the studio and did about half of the album in five days. When Mickey returned we began rehearsing Planet Drum again and he asked, "Well what have you been doing while I've been gone?" So I had the engineer play the recordings in the studio and Mickey said, "What? What is this?" I said, "That's our project that you are producing." [Laughs] He said, "Oh, you bet I am! Let's keep working on this!" So we would rehearse Planet Drum in the day and then work on The Other Side of This until the early mornings.

Tom: How do you see music and especially percussion evolving in the near future?

Airto: Percussion was probably the first ever instrument. People would play and not even know they were making music. I think it is always going to be a part of humanity. Right now there's a lot of synthesized music and percussion, but at the same time there are percussionists and drummers such as Mickey Hart, Zakir Hussain, myself and others who are playing all over the world. There is space for acoustic percussion, for the real thing. It will never die. I think that percussion will always grow together with the music. It doesn't matter what kind of music it is because the percussion will always be there. Percussion evolves with the music and with the human race. One doesn't need to be a professional - you can go and play some with the guys and it's OK. Percussion started the music, in the beginning. Percussion is a beautiful exchange, a melting pot. It will always exist and if they keep sampling, they're going to be sampling forever.

LINKS: www.airto.com

Our audio interview with Brazilian Jazz legend Flora Purim comprises this week's audio podcast episode. Don't miss this exclusive, in-depth interview with one of the world's greatest vocalist to hear first-hand her experiences on the world jazz scene. Flora also elaborates and reflects on music's spiritual properties and her Bahá'í faith.

CLICK HERE to visit our Podcast page to download this and other episodes of the RockOm Podcast. Grab it for your drive home and be sure to tell a friend we're here exploring the bond between music and spirituality!

An Interview with Brazilian Jazz legend Flora Purim
By Tom Crenshaw, tom@rockom.net

For those who know Flora, an introduction is unnecessary. Her music has interwoven the life fabric of anyone with a passing interest in Latin and American jazz music for over 25 years.

Flora's once-in-a-generation six-octave voice has earned her two Grammy nominations for Best Female Jazz Performance and Downbeat Magazine's Best Female Singer accolade on four occasions. Her musical partners have included Gil Evans, Stan Getz, Chick Corea, Dizzy Gillespie and her husband Airto Moreira, with whom she has collaborated on over 30 albums since moving with him from her native Rio to New York in 1967. In New York, she and Airto became central to the period of musical expression and creativity which produced the first commercially successful electric jazz groups of the 70s.

Shortly after, Flora became instrumental in opening the world up to new notions of what jazz can sound like by linking up with Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke and Joe Farrell to form Return To Forever in late 1971. She went on to contribute to some of the greatest recordings of the seventies - Carlos Santana, Hermeto Pascoal, Gil Evans, Chick Corea and Mickey Hart - with all benefiting from her vocal and arranging skills. In the mid-Eighties, Flora and Airto resumed their musical partnership to record two albums for Concord - Humble People and The Magicians - for which she received Grammy nominations. In 1992 she went one better by singing on two Grammy-winning albums - Planet Drum with Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart (Best World Music Album) and the Dizzy Gillespie United Nations Orchestra (Best Jazz Album).

In September of 2002, Brazil's President Fernando Henrique Cardoso named Flora Purim and Airto Moreira to the "Order of Rio Branco", one of Brazil's highest honors. Her latest album, Flora's Song, was released by Narada Records on June 28th, 2005.

RockOm had the honor and privilege to spend an extended period of time with Flora Purim recently while she was in Lisbon, Portugal touring with her husband. In this in-depth interview Flora Purim speaks with us regarding her early years in America, her close association with the greats in jazz music, how music transcends race, creed, and culture and an upcoming movie and book based on her life and career.

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Tom:  Tell us what you, your family and friends felt on that March evening in 1964 when the Brazilian military staged a coup overthrowing President Goulart sending Brazil into a totalitarian regime. There was widespread systematic repression of artistic freedom and free speech. Did this play a role in your decision to become an artist and do you ever regret leaving Brazil for America?

Flora:  Sure I regret leaving Brazil because it is a paradise and the outpouring of Brazilian music is so big that wherever I go, all over the world there is always a group playing Brazilian music. I am very proud to be Brazilian, but Brazil was a military dictatorship and the Government was censoring the lyrics of music and songs. I was only 20 years old and in the beginning of my career then. I felt if I didn’t leave the country I couldn't be a singer. I made the decision and since I loved jazz, I decided to go to the USA.

Tom:  When you arrived in New York City in 1967, you immediately jumped into the American jazz scene with the artists of the day such as Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis. Then a few short years later you met Chick Corea, Stan Getz, Gil Evans, Stanley Clarke, Joe Farrell and others. What did you think when you landed in New York and were able to be yourself and express yourself in the midst of such an eclectic music scene?

Flora: I thought I had died and was in paradise. I didn't know how I was going to find other musicians. I asked around at the hotel where I was staying in New York and was told I shouldn't be going into the heart of Harlem because I was white and it was a dangerous place to go. I said, "Well I come from Brazil and we don't discriminate, so I'm going to take my chance. I must go to Harlem; I have to go." So the concierge wrote an address on a piece of paper and I was dropped off at Club Baron.

I tried to pay my ticket to get in but the doorman started to speak to me and I didn't understand what he was saying. He was laughing, making jokes and wasn't going to sell me a ticket. The only thing I understood was that he called me Snow White. In the meantime, a very tall man was standing in the entranceway going from one side of the bar to the other. He saw the scene, reprimanded the man and he gave me his big hand and told me not to be afraid and to sit down with his lady. He invited me inside and I sat down with a white lady. She was very popular inside of the club. Everyone was arriving and kissing her hand and kissing her on the cheek. Later on, I found out she was a famous Baroness - Baroness Nika. She used to help Coltrane and Charlie Parker when they got sick. She was so loved by everyone because she had no prejudice and loved jazz to the point that she would offer space in her house when musicians got sick from time to time.

Then, when I finally sat down and felt more at ease I looked over at the bar and saw Wayne Shorter sitting there along with Art Blakey, Carmen McRae, Richard Davis, and Mongo Santamaria. I saw the creme of the creme all together in the same place. After Mongo Santamaria played his set - in which Chick Corea was the pianist - the second band came in. I didn't know what Thelonious Monk looked like. He was the guy that helped me get into the club. He walked on stage, sat down at the piano and played. I realized I was the luckiest person in the world. The second day in town I found the place where everyone converged after their gigs, talked with each other and jammed. Afterward, we all went to the house of bass player Walter Booker and played more until the early morning.

Tom: Tell me about the events leading up to meeting Chick Corea and later becoming a part of his fusion band Return to Forever.

Flora: I arrived in the US in December of '67, stayed in New York and later I got a call from an ex-boyfriend, Dom Um Romao, who  went on to perform with Weather Report and he said, "Come to California." So I flew out to California and stayed for about six months. I didn't have a work permit but I was going to the clubs. I saw Miles Davis for the first time along with Gary Barton and several of the young, up-and-coming musicians. Gary Barton was only 16 or 17 years old and he was playing free form jazz. A month afterward, my husband Airto (Moreira) arrived. We both went to see Miles Davis together. It was a dream for Airto.  Something happened to him when he first saw Miles.

I received an invitation from the drummer who was performing with South African singer Miriam Makeba who was singing Brazilian music. She had a choir behind her of three or four girls trying to sing in Portuguese. I went back to New York and was hired by Miriam Makeba to be a backup singer and help the girls learn to pronounce the lyrics correctly. Afterward, I sang two concerts with Miriam and she called me up and said, "You are too good to be just a background singer. I’m going to give you the name of my manager. Please look him up. I’m calling him to say I’m sending  you." Miriam's manger took me in and got me a record deal. I signed with the label that was owned by the comedian Bill Cosby. After the record was recorded and was about to be pressed and released the warehouse caught fire. My work was burned and that record never came out. It was a shock. I thought to myself, "It is not my time yet."

I stayed in New York and continued hanging out at the clubs. In the Village there were a lot of jazz clubs with great musicians and I always managed to get in for free.  I met Chick Corea then. At that time, Chick was playing for Miles Davis and Miles was looking to change the band. Joe Zawinul told Miles there was a Brazilian percussionist who was crazy and that he should check him out. Airto then received a call from Miles' manager. I'll let Airto tell you the rest in his own words and then I’ll tell you how it really was. [Laughs]

Later Chick decided to leave Miles and form a group with Dave Holland, Anthony Blackstone, and Barry Altschul [the group Circle]. They were just playing free form and Chick wanted his music to be more popular. He said that people loved the music but it was hard to duplicate the melodies they heard. He became obsessed to have his music sung and duplicated. He was looking for a person to sing his melodies, because if a person could sing melodies the public would understand that they could sing it too. He offered the music to Ella Fitzgerald and several others vocalists. The vocalists returned the music saying they were already well established on the Bebop jazz scene and didn’t want to take a risk of singing fusion because the music was not mainstream. It was fused with different rhythms.

I met Chick at Walter Booker's apartment after a concert. He asked me to come to his home and try some of his music because he was dying to hear someone sing some of his melodies. I said, "Yes, of course." The next day I went to Chick’s home and the first song he played for me was "What Game Shall We Play Today", and then others. I was overwhelmed with the beauty of the music and couldn’t believe I was having a chance to hear it first hand. So he asked me if I would like to sing those songs with him and to be part of the group that he was forming. He met a very young bass player just out of high School who was 17 years old. His name was Stanley Clarke. He invited flutist-saxophonist  Joe Farrell to join as well. Chick asked me to ask Airto to sit in until he found a drummer so we could keep rehearsing. Airto wasn't doing anything since Miles was taking a break, so I brought Airto in and Chick loved him so much that he decided not to look for another drummer.

"Music has no prejudices. Music does not ask you what color you are, where you come from or what your creed is. Music itself becomes God to us whenever we play it."

It was like magic. Sometimes you put five musicians together and they are great, but the magic doesn't happen. But this time it all melded together and became one. We were very excited to be playing and singing original music written especially for us. From that point on Chick wrote more and more and the music aimed at my voice or Stanley’s bass or Airto’s drumming or Joe Farrell’s flute and saxophone. The first album was called Return to Forever and the second was called Light as a Feather, which happens to contain a composition by Stanley Clark and me.

These two albums defined Return To Forever and in America we were not sure if they accepted us or not. But when we arrived in Japan or anywhere else around the world we were so famous we need a police escort. So many people were waiting at the airports screaming and giving us gifts. From that point on I understood there were certain prejudices and maybe the musicians that were dedicated to swing, mainstream, and Bebop were guardians of that style of music, which prevailed at the time. They were not giving in even if our music was nice. The rest of the world embraced Chick’s music. Some first started listening to jazz after Return To Forever and then started looking for other records that we were involved in as well and learning more and more about the other forms of jazz. You were right about one thing - because of my association with Chick Corea I became very, very popular all over the world.

Tom: In 1973 you released your first solo album, Butterfly Dreams, and went on to work with Carlos Santana on his album Welcome (1973) which also featured John McLaughlin, Tom Coster, Leon Thomas and John Coltrane's widow, Alice. Tell us about the vibe in the air working on that album.

Flora: Well Carlos was incredible. We were playing at the Keystone Korner in San Francisco and one night Carlos walked in for the second show. I saw him come in but I had never met him before. After the show he said he was recording that night and invited us to come to Columbia Studios. He played some of the songs for us and asked if we could do something to enhance the songs. He offered me two songs and Airto worked on another two or three songs. The next week he had a concert at the Museum of Modern Art and I sat in with the band. A very famous writer Ralph Gleason wrote a review of the show and said I was great and raved about me. The next day I got a call from Fantasy Records and they invited me to sign a contract with them.

Tom: You were involved as a co-producer along with Mickey Hart and your husband Airto on the 1992 Grammy Award winning Planet Drum album. In speaking with Mickey Hart and Zakir Hussain they both spoke about the spiritual nature and healing qualities in music. Do you feel the same way? Does rhythm and music have unifying and healing properties?

Flora: I would say yes. When Mickey Hart’s wife was about to have a baby and was in labor for hours nothing would help. Mickey put on a track from Planet Drum and she relaxed and gave birth right away. I also learned from Babatunji Olantundi that drums are not made from just any tree. In Nigeria, to cut the tree to make a drum you have to talk to that tree for months and get an affinity and have the tree recognize you - even tell stories to the tree. You and the tree become friends. So when the time comes to make a drum from that tree, the tree is ready and understands it’s not going to stop "being nature", that it would actually be helping the world to know that the first language between men was drumming.

Tom: Through your close friendship with Dizzy Gillespie, who was a devotee of the Bahá'í faith, you came to adopt that faith. How has Bahá'í influence you?

Flora: Bahá'í was a young religion when I met Dizzy. Dizzy used to carry his praying book, which was different than everyone else's.  All the pages were embossed in gold and his name was written on the front in gold. I used to sit next to him in first class, so once I asked him, "You are always reading this book. What is so good about it." He said, "This book is my Bible and I know every single prayer by memory."  I challenged him and he said, "OK, I’ll give you the book and you can open it to any page and ask me." I took the book, opened it to one page, and by chance it was the Prayer of the Traveler. He said, "Which one out of the five?" I chose, thinking it would be difficult for him. He recited the prayer fluently. I thought  to myself "He’s lucky, the Prayer of the Traveler is one he must read most often." I opened up another page, I challenged him again, and he recited the prayer perfectly. He read that book for 30 years every day. He read to remind himself that men should help other men, that a universal language should be created so that people could communicate and that women should be treated equal to men.

I told Dizzy, "I want to be a Bahá'í." He said, "You can’t be a Bahá'í yet." I asked him why. He said, "Before you decide you want to be a Bahá'í you have to read a couple of books to see if you agree with it." I was given several books to read, loved them and said, "I still want to be a Bahá'í." So we were leaving Australia and the family that was receiving all the Bahá'í in the town ran to the airport and gave me the book of prayers, just like Dizzy's book. Inside of the book was an Australian ten-dollar bill. I said, "Wait, I think you forgot the money." The lady who gave me the book said, "No we, didn't forget. You always keep this note inside of the book because this is to bring you more money and it could save you in a difficult situation." I kept it and never spent that money.

Tom: Sometimes music brings people together in ways that nothing else can. What is it about music that bridges barriers and put us in touch with that which we call the Divine?

Flora: Music has no prejudices. Music does not ask you what color you are, where you come from or what your creed is. Music itself becomes God to us whenever we play it. As musicians we only communicate through notes and rhythms. We hardly talk with each other unless it's to give a new idea for direction. At the time we are playing it doesn't count what color you are, where you come from, or which religion you practice. I love that.

Tom: What does the future hold for you?

Flora: I have lots of work ahead of me. I've been in Portugal working with a screenwriter and with another writer to do a book of my trials and tribulations along with a film based on a Brazilian singer who wanted to sing Jazz. This project is very big, is sponsored by the Brazilian Government, and is entitled "Brazilian Flora". I am singing all Brazilian music by Brazilian musicians. Because of my popularity around the world I can bring the new Brazilian music to the rest of the world as long as I keep singing.

www.florapurim.com

Watch for an interview with Flora's husband, Airto Moreira, next week right here at RockOm.

An Interview with Mickey Hart
By Tom Crenshaw tom@rockom.net

As a child, Mickey Hart used to stand out in thunderstorms listening to the patterns and sounds of the rain as it fell. He recalls some of his neighbors saying quizzically to his parents, "That boy of yours, Mrs. Hart, he's a strange fellow!" That rhythmic inquisitiveness as a child led Mickey deeper into the mysteries of sound as he grew older, becoming one of the world’s most celebrated percussionists and authoritarians on world music and music's healing abilities.

For nearly three decades Mickey has performed on drums and percussion as part of the Grateful Dead (along with fellow drummer Bill Kreutzmann) but his accomplishments don't end there. Through his tireless study of world music Mickey has gone on to contribute more than most any other musician to the study of sound, rhythm and the incredible healing aspects contained within.

Mickey has also written four books documenting his lifelong fascination with the history and mythology of music. These include Drumming at the Edge of Magic, Planet Drum, Spirit into Sound: The Magic of Music, and Songcatchers: In Search of the World’s Music. He’s appeared before the United States Senate to discuss the healing powers of music and rhythm and is a member of the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function at Beth Abraham Hospital where he continues his investigation into the connection between healing and rhythm and the neural bases of rhythm. Mickey has also been appointed to the Board of Trustees of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress where he heads the subcommittee on the digitization and preservation of the Center's vast collections.

In addition, Mickey Hart has composed music for movies, television and celebrated events including Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, the PBS special Vietnam: A Television History, and The 1996 Summer Olympic Games to mention a few.

RockOm had the extraordinary opportunity to spend some time with Mickey recently to discuss his early initiation into sound and rhythm, his role in the Grateful Dead, his various Grammy Award-winning albums of percussion and world music, and the incredible reality that there are new, healing rhythms being born into the world every day.

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RockOm: What are your earliest memories of music and drumming?

Mickey Hart: That all depends on what you call music and what you call drumming. I was always interested in the nature of the rain, loud sounds of the city, trolley cars – so the rhythmic tattoo of New York City first captivated me, the rhythm and the noise of things – buildings being torn down, a lawn mower – pretty much "loud stuff." I love the loud in things. The rain especially was transfixing because it came down so rhythmically. I would stand out in the rain and let it beat on me and it went deep into the subconscious and inner self. It felt really good to be out there. Those were my first thoughts of rhythm and noise.

Then of course the radio would captivate me. My mother had Folkways records tucked in the middle of a Duke Ellington collection. I started listening to pygmy rainforest music and listening to indigenous musicians as the first real turn-on to membranophones, or drums. And Latin music was really taking over at that time in New York City – Tito Puente and Machito – and that was coming out of every radio and every phonograph around the city. Before Rock N’ Roll there was Latin music which was full of syncopation and  got my ear. My dad and mom were both rudimental drummers and when my dad had left when I was an infant, he left a practice pad. That practice pad was my key into the other side. When I heard the report of the practice pad, that sealed the deal. There was nothing more beautiful than the short, sharp sound from the pad; I could listen to it over and over again. It became like my radar. That was the beginning of it all. I was a strange, unsettling boy.

RO: Tell us about meeting Babatunde Olatunji and how that impressed upon you.

Mickey Hart: Olatunji came in about 1959 much later; what I’m talking about is the early and mid-50s. But when I heard Olatunji's album Drums of Passion I had never really heard drums played at that level and I certainly had never heard a talking drum – a variable pitched instrument. Here you had the powerful trance loops of Western Africa. I mean people didn’t know that’s what they were experiencing but here you had trance rhythms played in New York City in a fine recording studio with CBS. And Baba was a great vocalist so here you had chant over these powerful, magical rhythms. So when I heard that album that sealed the deal as well as far as the power of raw percussion and voice. It changed my life, no doubt.

Then of course I was fortunate enough to run into him in 1985 and when I asked him to open up for the Grateful Dead, he didn’t know who we were. He said, “Ya, ya, ya…” and left. Someone then must have told him who I was and he called me back. We got to be friends and he opened for the Grateful Dead and the fans loved him. He became my best friend and the godfather of my daughter. So he was another major influence to me as well as to hundreds of thousands of practitioners and musicians from around the world – Coltrane knew him. All kinds of people were being sucked into this powerful rhythm snake.

RO: When did you first recognize your experience with rhythm and drumming going from beyond the ordinary into a mystical or spiritual realm?

Mickey Hart: I didn’t know what to call it when I was young but I was going into trance when I was alone. I played alone a lot and so it became a meditation and I was definitely moving in and out of trance. Looking back on it now I would play for hours and not eat. I was totally in the zone and that is a sure sign of a trance. That was unconscious. But then when I started playing in the Grateful Dead, I started really seeing the ritual unfold. It was out of control. It was a wondrous thing, going into a new soundscape that no one had ever been to. Well, I had never been to it, nor had anyone else around me. So I figure we were moving into realms of consciousness by taking psychoactive drugs simultaneously and playing for hours and hours. Again, this was a deep trance. People would just lose themselves in the groove and dance for hours and copulate and everything. It was a quite a scene. That also made a big impression on me, seeing a new ritual being born – you know, with white kids on the edge of the Western world.

Then as far as the health part of all this, I saw that music reconnected you with the infinite, vibratory universe when my grandmother had Alzheimer’s. She hadn’t spoken a word in six months and I isolated her once in the car when I taking her somewhere. I just happened to play my tar, my single-membrane tar, for her for about 20 minutes. She was looking at it and all the sudden she spoke my name and I thought, “Wow, this is powerful.” This is somebody who was disconnected from speech, who was motor-impaired saying my name. Then when I stopped, she went back into the darkness. That was a moment for me and I realized that rhythm has to do with life and the giving of life and the taking of life. When the rhythm stops, you’re dead. When the rhythm is good, you live a good life. It also can reconnect some of the connections that are broken in the brain using certain rhythms at certain volumes. It was then that rhythm therapy came into view and the music therapists started appearing. I appeared in front of the Senate in 1990 and testified on the power of rhythm in front of Harry Reid on the Committee for Aging. Harry gave me and Oliver Sacks a million bucks to kick-start music therapy here in the West.

RO: You mentioned in earlier interviews that the Grateful Dead were in the business of transportation. What was your role in transporting your fans and listeners?

Mickey Hart: I made the traps. I was in the engine room. Me and Bill Kreutzmann made that feeling that allowed you to go to those places that laid the foundation for the melody and the harmony and the song.

RO: So in a sense of the word do you and Bill Kreutzmann consider yourselves modern day shamans?

Mickey Hart: You could say that. I would say we’re more “seat-of-the-pants” kind of shamans. But we are practicing the art of shamanism for sure. We’re transporting people into other consciousness and that’s what shaman do. Yeah, we don’t have a license [laughs] but we do it!

RO: In your role of being a transporter, where are you wanting your listeners to “arrive”?

Mickey Hart: It’s certainly a state of bliss, of being centered, of happiness – where you can make sense of everything around you. That’s what consciousness is all about. Everybody has a different consciousness but the idea is to elevate the consciousness to a place where you can feel who you are and how you fit in. That’s what spirituality really is – it’s a tuning system, to tune you and the universe. Part of the universe is the people you live with, the people you love, your children, your self! If you can’t have this feeling within yourself you can’t give it to anyone else.

So it’s a constant maintenance and practice. I play every day to maintain a level that I can share with others. How do you share the precious, invisible feeling of spirit with someone? Well you have to change it into a form. In this case, it’s music; it’s vibratory. The universe is vibratory, you are vibratory, the things you create in culture are vibratory. How these rhythm worlds all work together, that’s the yoga of sound. That’s why music is such a great vehicle. It’s not really about the music, it’s what the music does to you and the feeling it creates in you and what you do with that feeling. Music is important!

If you talk to Michael Jordan, he will tell you that going to the basket and being up there for four or five seconds -- that’s God. He’s in an absolutely perfect, rhythmic entrainment with himself, the people around him and the universe. It doesn’t happen all the time; it only happens in moments. It’s not like you can tune yourself in and stay in this place forever, it’s a constant ebb and flow in and out of these wonderful states of consciousness. But if you don’t go for these moments, then you’re just in the music business and I never thought of myself in the music business. It wasn’t about that. When I went after a groove and the music, it wasn’t necessarily to entertain. When I get lost in it, it might not even be interesting on some levels, it may be self-serving. But I’m trying to create some kind of a feeling that’s relevant to the moment.

You can’t really judge these things in those terms of good or bad, you have to judge them in other ways such as what do they do? Are they positive? Are they negative? Like love, compassion, all those good things are positive. War, hate, racism, murder, people who take more than they give – that’s bad rhythm. Health is good rhythm. Disease means you’re out of rhythm. I’m sure all musicians want to play technically good and so do I, but I try to separate the ritual from the technical. You have to be technically good to create good ritual. These are very gray lines – one person’s spirit is another person’s non-spirit. So this is a very individual thing.

RO: You’ve been exposed to a wide variety of spiritual influences from that found in Indian and African music, to Tibetan monks, to the shamanistic spirituality of Carlos Santana to the mythological and bigger picture spirituality of Joseph Campbell. How would you describe your current spiritual worldview.

Mickey Hart: Well I know who my God is. If there is a Creator, it’s a rhythm. In the vibratory universe, the seed sound is the creation of everything. And in that sound, in that rhythm, you find what some people would call spirituality or the sacred dimension. There was nobody up there that said, “make this [life] happen.” This came out an arrhythmic event 10 billion years ago like I write about in the books. Now I’m really starting to really study the planet and listening to what they say through radio telescopes – making music with the universe. It’s led me back to the seed sound and that’s what I’m exploring now – dealing with the fabric of the universe and how to make contact with it and interact with it intelligently.

RO: Last year we spoke with your friend Zakir Hussain and he went into some details about rituals and cleansing before performing. You say you practice every day to stay in shape, is there anything ritualistic or ceremonial in regards to your warm-ups or preparations to perform that you’d be willing to share with us?

Mickey Hart: Sure. I always feel my heartbeat. I work out in the morning doing my cardio routine and then on the way to the studio (which I go to everyday) I start focusing on me and my heart beat, my rate. Even when I’m walking I feel the pulse. That gives me a place to start. Like as I’m talking to you now, I’m feeling my pulse. It’s something that I refer to from time to time. I always try to start there. I warm up a lot for long periods of time before I actually commit to the drum. I prepare myself and warm up really slow and long. I like taking an hour and half in my warm-up before I really go after a drum.

RO: Let’s talk about 1991’s Planet Drum CD where you convened some the world’s finest percussionists and musicians together. What were your intentions in gathering these particular artists to record that groundbreaking album?

Mickey Hart: I knew them all individually but they didn’t know each other. One night in the middle of the night I popped up and realized that I’m sitting on top of the mountain here. This is the Promised Land. I made the calls and one by one I introduced them to each other. They all showed up, turned on the microphones and let it all pour out. It was certainly musical magic. All the tracks were first takes, one person started playing and the next person related to it. I told them the mission was that we weren’t going for solos, we were going for the deep drumming groove and to entrain. They all could relate to that and that was history. That was really percussive history.

RO: Was it surprising the response the CD received?

Mickey Hart: Not in my world! [laughs] I thought everything we did could sell a million records. No… yes, of course it was. Winning the Grammy and being 26 weeks at #1 and touring and selling hundreds of thousands of CDs was gratifying. It also elevated percussion into a whole new realm where it was respected as an instrument equal to melody and harmony. It was musical.

RO: So you repeated it again this year with your Grammy for Global Drum Project?

Mickey Hart: Yeah, we did it again this year and now we’re working on a new one. That’s what I’ll be doing as soon as finish this interview.

RO: Earlier this year the Tibetan Chants for World Peace album you produced with the Gyoto Monks Tantric Choir was at the top of the Amazon and iTunes charts…

Mickey Hart: [laughs] Yeah, can you imagine that! I thought when that happened, I had seen everything. Here we’ve got a choir of monks from Tibet singing three notes each that is on the top of the charts. I never thought I’d live to see this. It made my day!

RO: What did that experience teach you, bringing the monks into the studio?

Mickey Hart: Well I’ve been doing it since 1987 and it’s rewarding beyond words, sitting there letting the chants wash over you. I think it’s very self-serving on my part. In some ways isolating them and listening to them for hours, having the privilege of being with these wonderful people, turns you into a speck of dust. It puts you in your proper perspective in the universe and is always a thrill. But this one was over the top because they allowed me to overdub themselves on themselves. We created a choir of over 110 or 120 voices. That hasn’t been heard outside the monasteries of Tibet since the 50s because there aren’t that many chanting monks now and they don’t do these giant rituals in Dharamsala, where most of them reside. Any day listening to the chants of the Gyoto Tantric Choir is a good day for me.

RO: Do you believe there’s still music and rhythms on the planet that we haven’t been made aware of yet?

Mickey Hart: There are rhythms being born as we speak - new rhythms being born in places we know of and places we don’t know of. That’s the way of music. That’s the way of things – they either grow and become relevant and serve the community or they die. Yes, there are new rhythms being born constantly and they’re mutations actually. Almost all music on this planet is a mutation or hybrid of something else that came before.

RO: What’s next for you, Mickey?

Mickey Hart: I’m after the sound of the universe, that’s where I’m going now.

www.mickeyhart.net

www.facebook.com/mickeyhart

Special thanks to Rose Soloman and Dennis McNally

Mickey Hart photo by John Werner

By Tom Crenshaw, tom@RockOm.net

Yesterday I interviewed the legendary percussionist Airto Moreira for an upcoming feature planned at RockOm. For those who may not know of Moreira, Arito has worked with Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Francis Ford Coppola, Mickey Hart, Zakir Hussain and Flora Purim (Moreira’s wife who is a celebrated Brazilian jazz singer herself) to mention a few. I can only say his unpretentious viewpoint of his accomplishments precedes his reputation as a musician - quite impressive for someone who has contributed some of music's greatest rhythms. I was particularly struck by how Moreira expressed his acting as a channel from which a rich spiritual joy pours forth. It was when joy overtook him that he knew he was creating and performing music of the most extraordinary kind.

How can we, as Moreira, become a channel or a vessel for Spirit to express joy in the carrying out of our obligations - be it creating or performing music, or simply performing our daily work, no matter how mundane our tasks may seem?

One of the most effective ways to “get out of our own way” and express joy in the moment is to recognize the moment for what it is: it is sacred. This moment is, as the greatest teachers of spiritual enlightenment have taught for thousands of years, all that we can truly exist in. In recognizing the moment, instead of reliving the past or anticipating the future, we can begin to witness our being carrying out what it is we are doing in a new light. We become present and capable of being a channel to express joy.

Another way we can express joy is to not judge what it is we are doing in the moment so quickly. We tend to jump right in, right away at any given moment and define what we think is going on before Spirit has the opportunity to color our awareness and shed its light on our being. Take for example playing music. There isn’t a right way or a wrong way to play a note in music- there is simply the most effective way to communicate how you are feeling in the moment. How can we perform passionately while we're worrying about the last note that just tanked and anticipating the notes to come, hoping they won’t turn out like the notes before?

The same can be said for experiencing music as a listener. Upon hearing new music we tend to anticipate where we think the music is going.  Again, we’re not in the moment but referencing experiences from the past (“this sounds like such and such song”). We can’t experience the full joy of the music because we aren’t present – we’re anticipating or judging what it is we think we’re going to hear.

Today, spend some time being fully present in the moment in whatever you are doing and open up your being to become a channel for expressing joy. You’ll know when you are recognizing this sacred moment when you’re quickly filled with all that is good and joyous. When you can’t contain anymore, all that goodness will spill over and out, out into those around you and into the world.

You are designed from joy, to be filled with joy and to share that joy with those around you. Be present and open, don’t judge and become a channel. You have beautiful music inside you that is already in-tune with all that is good.

Watch for RockOm’s interview and podcast featuring percussionist Airto Moreira coming in September.

By Tom Crenshaw and Trevor Harden

RockOm: You've just wrapped up the tour supporting your African Project: Throw Down Your Heart. What did your time spent working on this project - both in Africa as well as your time touring with these musicians - teach you about music’s ability to bring people of different cultures together?

Bela Fleck: It was a wonderful experience and I believe I will feel the repercussions for the rest of my life. It changed my musical worldview and opened my horizons.

RO: What will you miss most and reflect back on after your time with these great African artists is over and you move on to new projects?

Bela: The great relationships I have made with such great musicians are very special. I will miss these guys. But I plan to keep the doors open and see where the road leads.

RO: What should listeners expect from the upcoming CD with Zakir Hussain, Edgar Meyer and conductor Leonard Slatkin?

Bela: It is an interesting project for several reasons. There is the ambitious triple concerto that we wrote, which is my first recording with an orchestra. Then there are the six trio pieces that we wrote, which is a much more intimate relationship. Then there is the weaving of the trio music and the concerto, which flows together in a cool way. We pulled some themes out of the concerto and developed them differently. This connects the orchestra music with the trio music and makes for a very satisfying unity.

RO: Zakir Hussain spoke with us about the special soul connection that is made with certain musicians, thereby setting the stage for long term relationships. How do you feel about the spirit uniting you with Hussain, as well as Edgar Meyer, and do you approach performing with these two artists differently than with others?

Bela: I felt so comfortable playing with Zakir. And Edgar is virtually my brother. So Zakir freshens our relationship in an incredible way and inspires with ideas that are new to us. Plus he is a groovin' dude, and I love to groove...

RO: Abigail Washburn is such an inspirational artist and performer with a distinct spirituality, which she shared with RockOm in our interview last year. As a part of The Sparrow Quartet (alongside Washburn, Ben Sollee, and Casey Driessan), what did you take away from the group's multiple tours of China and Tibet, promoting an exchange between East and West?

Bela: It also expanded my worldview, replacing my images of what these places would be like with actual experiences. I learned music from the Chinese, Tibetans and my fellow Sparrows. It was incredible to be in Tibet with the two governments working together.

RO: Lastly, keeping in mind the Christianity of Bach and bluegrass music, the Buddhism of Tibet, and the Hindu roots of Zakir's tradition - and since you've played in or with these different genres and styles - what are your general thoughts on how faith and religion serve and influence music?

Bela: I think music can be its own religion sometimes! I respect everyone's views and keep mine to myself and a few friends.

RO: Does music inherently call forth our better selves and sever the distinction between creeds or faiths?

Bela: It certainly can. These types of collaborations can bring out that very positive aspect. However it can also be used in a negative way, so beware the awesome power of music.

MORE INFO: Bela Fleck recently wrapped a tour (8/12) with Toumani Diabate from the African Project: Throw Down Your Heart. He will be performing with RockOm alum Abigail Washburn on August 27-31 in Tonder, Denmark as part of the Tonder Music Festival. Beginning September 13, Fleck, along with Edgar Meyer & RockOm alum Zakir Hussain, will be touring and performing new music from their upcoming CD along side with their innovative "Triple Concerto for Banjo, Tabla and Double Bass". Beginning October 11 Bela Fleck and The Flecktones begin a month long tour. In early 2010 Bela Fleck and The African Project will be back out on the road. For more information on these concerts and dates please see Belafleck.com.

This week’s RockOm Featured Tracks of the Week are by the much heralded Gaura Vani & As Kindred Spirits. Their songs, “Surrender” and “Sleeping Soul (Jiv Jago)” are but tiny glimpses into the multi-faceted ensemble lead by Gaura Vani. Their latest release on Mantralogy Records is entitled Ten Million Moons.

Not only has Gaura Vani & As Kindred Spirits 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."

Catch their songs “Surrender” as well as “Sleeping Soul (Jiv Jago)” all this week on the homepage at RockOm.net.

Also, be sure to catch Gaura Vani & As Kindred Spirits on the first Mantralogy Tour ever! The tour has just begun in New York, continues to Toronto, Canada and then proceeds to LA for their tour of the West Coast ending with the BhaktiFest September 11.

This Thursday we’ll be featuring the entire audio of our interview with Gaura Vani in a new edition of the RockOm.net Podcast.

In addition we’d like to keep you abreast of some RockOm related websites where you can explore videos and connect with us as well. We have a new video of excerpts from RockOm’s interview with Gaura Vani up at our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/rockomrocks as well as at our YouTube page at www.youtube.com/user/rockomrocks where you can see other compelling video excerpts from archived interviews with the likes of Ricky Skaggs, Ms. Odetta, Krishna Das, Zakir Hussain and Brain “Head” Welch of Korn.  Or you can also see the new video promo right below.

Finally, this week RockOm begins experimenting with a couple of new daily features including a "daily quote meditation" and some other surprises. Stay tuned for some additional new blog posts and please let us know your thoughts and feedback!

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.

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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