Gamelan - Is Music Invisible Architecture?

David Canright
"Fibonacci Gamelan Rhythms"

What possible connection could there be between the traditional gamelan music of Indonesia and the twelfth-century Italian mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci? The two would seem unrelated, perhaps unrelatable. But in attempting to combine ideas from both of these sources, I discovered some fascinating rhythmic patterns, which are also related to a new form of matter called quasicrystals.

("Hold on there! Isn't this journal supposed to be about Just Intonation? What's this article doing here?" you may be wondering. My main excuse is that I've used these rhythms in compositions in Just Intonation. Besides, the concept of ideal proportion, as in the frequencies of acoustically pure musical intervals, can be extended to the much lower frequencies of rhythmic structure.)



The Fibonacci sequence (or series) of numbers begins:
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, ...
Each number is the sum of the previous two numbers, and the sequence is endless. These numbers, and especially ratios of two successive Fibonacci numbers, show up in a wide variety of situations, including nature. For example, the petals of a Monterey pine cone are arranged in spirals crossing in both directions: eight spirals in one direction and thirteen in the other. Similar patterns arise in the seeds of sunflowers and in other plants whose leaves grow in a spiral around a central stem; each successive leaf may be on the opposite side (1/2 way around) or may be 2/3 of the way around, or 3/5, etc. Nature seems to be biased in some ways in favor of the Fibonacci numbers.


A later idea was to use Fibonacci numbers in a layered rhythmic structure like that of traditional Indonesian music. Many years before, a friend had taken me to a performance of Balinese music, and I was entranced by the beauty of the instruments of the gamelan (Indonesian ensemble of gongs, metallophones, etc.), by the fluid melodies, the harmonious scales, and the layers of sounds. In simplified terms, each layer consists of instruments of a certain pitch range, playing at a certain tempo. The highest-pitched instruments play fastest, the next highest play half as fast (i.e., every other beat), the next layer half again as fast, all the way down to the low gongs that strike only once every 16 or 32 beats. Every layer strictly reinforces all higher layers in this simplified view - there is no syncopation (unlike real Indonesian music). Whenever a low note strikes, higher notes at all layers also strike.

The ratios of successive Fibonacci numbers form another sequence:
1/1, 2/1, 3/2, 5/3, 8/5, 13/8, ...
or in decimal form:
1.0, 2.0, 1.5, 1.66..., 1.60, 1.625, ...
which gets closer and closer (over and under) to a certain irrational number called the Golden Mean (I'll use "G" for short):
G = (1 + sqrt(5))/2 = 1.6180339887...
If you take a rectangle of length G and height 1, and cut off a big square of length 1, the small rectangle left over has the same proportions as the original rectangle (i.e., G - 1 = 1/G). The ancient Greeks considered this number to be the perfect proportion; the Parthenon was designed with the proportion (width to height) of the Golden Mean. Many people since, up to the present, have attributed aesthetic qualities to the Golden Mean.




The rest here.

National Geographic DJ Series

National Geograhic has been asking some globally minded electronic producers and DJ's such as Richard Blair (Sidestepper), Cheb i Sabbah, even Chris Blackwell to recommend world music.
Check it out here

Diga Rhythm Band

Northern India's tabla master, Zakir Hussain, founded the Tal Vadya Rhythm Band in 1973, as part of a performance project at the Ali Akbar College of Music. When his good friend Mickey Hart joined the ensemble in 1975, the group's name was changed to Diga Rhythm Band; and this classic percussion album was recorded the following year. It was remixed in 1988 for CD debut on Rykodisc, and sparkles timelessly as perhaps the seminal "world music" album.

"This recording was a labor of love; the world's percussion coming together for a brief moment in time. It is filled with tuned percussion from all over the world-brass, skin, stone, wood. It is music of the whole earth. Diga is a jewel." - Mikey Hart

Diga Rhythm Band:

Jordan Amarantha - congas, bongos
Peter Carmichael - tabla
Aushim Chaudhuri - tabla
Vince Delgado - dumbek, tabla, talking drum
Tor Dietrichson - tabla
Mickey Hart - traps, gongs, timbales, tympani
Zakir Hussain - tabla, folk drums, tar
Jim Loveless - marimbas
Joy Shulman - tabla
Ray Spiegel - vibes
Arshad Syed - duggi tarang, nal

Guests;
Jerry Garcia - guitar (on Razooli and Happiness Is Drumming)
Jim McPherson - vocals (on Razooli)
Kathy McDonald - vocals (on Razooli)
David Freiberg - vocals (on Razooli)

BBC Radio 3 - World Music Awards

2006 Winner's can be found here

Peter Buffett - Yonnondio

Peter Andrew Buffett is an American musician, composer, and producer. Buffett is the second son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett and his late wife Susan Buffett.

Narada Productions, a new age music recording company, signed Buffett to a recording contract. In 1987, Buffett debuted with Narada, releasing an album entitled The Waiting. While working on his second album, One by One, Buffett moved to Milwaukee, home of Narada Productions and closer to his childhood home in Omaha, Nebraska. Buffett would release two more albums with Narada: Lost Frontier and Yonnondio.

While with Narada, Buffett had his first major success, scoring and choreographing the "Fire Dance" in the film, Dances With Wolves. The film score, composed by John Barry, would win an Academy Award. After Buffett played at the film's 1991 premiere, John Barry invited Buffett to collaborate with him once again, this time at the Abbey Road Studios in London. Buffett composed two songs on the soundtrack for The Scarlet Letter.

After the release of Yonnondio, Buffett signed with Epic Records, which in 1994 released his soundtrack for the CBS miniseries 500 Nations. 500 Nations was produced by Kevin Costner, who also co-produced Dances With Wolves. The miniseries would win the Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries in 1995. Buffett then signed with Hollywood Records, which released his album Spirit Dance in 1997. In 1999, his score for the documentary Wisconsin: An American Portrait won the Emmy for Best Soundtrack.

Also in 1999, Buffett was involved with a benefit concert for Jamie and Robert Redford . At this concert, he performed with Hawk Pope, chief of the United Remnant Band of the Shawnee Nation. Buffett and Pope decided to collaborate, and began touring together in a live version of the PBS Pledge Special "Spirit". In 2005 an updated version of the Buffett-created and composed "Spirit" was performed on the National Mall during the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in its own state-of-the-art 800 seat theater tent.

Drum Circles

According to Mickey Hart: "The ultimate goal (of the drum circle) is not precise rhythmic articulation or perfection of patterned structure, but the ability to entrain and reach the state of a group mind. It is built on cooperation in the groove, but with little reference to any classic styles. So this is a work in constant progress, a phenomenon of the new rhythm culture emerging here in the West. "



In an ethno-specific drum circle the rhythms have history, are hundreds of years old, and are passed down through oral tradition from generation to generation. An example of an ethnic specific drum circle would be Afro-Cuban drum circle. It consists of congas, supported by claves, and bells. Congas in a normal Afro-Cuban drum circle would be a Tumba, a Conga, and a Quinto, each drum having a specific tuning, and each drum has a specific part that, when played creates the Afro-Cuban rumba drum songs of which there are many. Another culturally specific drum circle would be a West African Djembe/djun-djun circle, where only Djembe, djun-djuns and atoke bells would be used to create rhythm songs, specific to the culture that the drums came from.



Today, most likely a drum circle is any group of people of any age playing (usually) hand-drums and percussion in a circle. Other instruments and dance are also incorporated into the drum circle. In Western countries, drum circles have come have had some association with Hippie counterculture. Since the 1970's, as a teambuilding activity drum circles have become an established part of Corporate training events. Professional drumcircle facilitators have been regular visitors in schools for many years.


Babatunde Olatunji was a drum circle artist from the 1960's until his passing in 2003. He worked with many major artists, including John Coltrane, Carlos Santana, Taj Mahal and the Grateful Dead. He earned a Grammy nomination from his 1997 album Love Drum Talk. Arthur Hull is another recognized drum circle advocate, as is Zorina Wolf, a student of Babatunde.

Biblioteca Virtual

Biblioteca Virtual - Africa, Islam, Arabic World subject library.
All the following books, papers and journals from this library are free, public and full text to download. they focus the selection on Africa and Islam subjects. There's only one main section, alphabetically classified.

The library is growing periodically and it's open to your suggestions and collaboration. See the enlightening collection here.

Mohamed Mohy

Heard this singer in the cab today. Trying to find more info. Also interested in tracking down more information on these "love song" singers from Arabic regions. SImilar to Ghazal singers from Indo-Pak regions.

Kazu Matsui

A master of the shakuhachi (a Japanese traditional bamboo flute), artist Kazu Matsui was born in Tokyo on June 5, 1954. He travelled in India and Europe for two years when he was 20 years old, and once drove a car from London to India. Living in the countryside in India taught him many things, especially the value of human life. He came to the U.S. wanting to become a fiction writer. He graduated from UCLA majoring in ethnic arts, returning to Tokyo to teach Educational Theories at Toyoeiwa Woman's University. Matsui concurrently mounted his music career with sessions including Danny O'Keefe's 1979 LP The Global Blues, subsequently appearing on sessions headlined by Ry Cooder (1982's Slide Area) and Joni Mitchell (1985's Dog Eat Dog); he additionally contributed music to a series of major Hollywood features including Willow, Legends of the Fall, and Jumanji, also producing recordings for his wife, keyboardist Keiko Matsui. He issued his debut solo album, Sign of the Snow Crane, in 1989, followed eventually by 1995's Wind, 1997's Tribal Mozart, and its 1999 sequel, Tribal Schubert. In 2002 the atmospheric Bamboo was released, and three years later came Stone Monkey, which featured his shakuhachi mixed with breakbeats. In 2006, another record for his side group, the Kazu Matsui Project, Pioneer, was issued. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide

Raz Mesinai

Raz Mesinai was born in Jerusalem in 1973. His first two decades were spent in frequent transit between Jerusalem and New York City, where he became immersed in both the worlds of traditional Middle Eastern music, and the dub and hip-hop scenes of the eighties and early nineties in New York City. He became involved in the avant-garde, downtown music scene of New York City, performing, improvising, and leading his own ensembles on percussion, piano and sampler.

Mesinai's electronic and electro-acoustic music exists at the crossroads of composition, sound design and modern studio production. His acclaimed recordings under the moniker Badawi, and as one half of the seminal duo Sub Dub (with John Ward), are difficult to classify, but have been called hybrid electronica/dub/percussion/avant-garde compositions. Since 1999, Mesinai has been releasing music under his own name as well, including three releases on John Zorn's "Tzadik" label. His work has been commissioned by the Lincoln Center Festival, the Jerome Foundation and the American Music Center. In 2001, "Soldier of Midian" (ROIR) received an award from the Ars Electronica festival. In 2002, Raz was a featured artist in the "Next, Next Wave" festival of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and opened for Nubian master musician Hamza El Din at Lincoln Center, a personal highlight. In 2004, following his developing interest in visual narrative and storytelling in music, Mesinai was a Fellow at the Sundance Composer's Lab where he had the opportunity to participate in workshops with such artists as John Adams, Osvaldo Golijov and Thomas Newman. He's currently scoring several films.

Khaled

Khaled [خالد], born Khaled Hadj Brahim, is an Algerian raï singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Oran. He was born on 29 February 1960 in Sidi-El-Houri, Algeria. He began recording in his early teens under the name Cheb Khaled (Arabic for "Young Khaled") and has become probably the most internationally famous Algerian singer. His popularity has earned him the unofficial title "King of Raï".

At the age of fourteen Khaled formed his first band, "Les Cinq Etoiles" (French for "The Five Stars"), and began playing at wedding parties and local cabarets. He recorded his first solo single, "Trigue Lycee" ("The Road to School"), at age fourteen and soon became involved with the early-1980s changes in the raï sound, incorporating western instruments and studio techniques.

Algerian Islamic fundamentalists were violently opposed to raï because of its sometimes irreverent tone and the fact that raï singers freely addressed taboo issues like romantic love, drugs, and alcohol. Fundamentalists were infuriated when the Algerian government, in the wake of a hugely popular 1985 raï festival in Oran, officially declared it to be one of the country's native music styles. In response, fundamentalists sent death threats to some raï artists. The danger forced Khaled to move to Paris in 1986. In 1994 these threats materialized when another Raï artist, Cheb Hasni, was murdered.

In 1992 after dropping "Cheb" from his name, he released his self titled album Khaled, which established his reputation as a superstar in France and among maghrebian emigrants around the world. His audience has continued to expand throughout the 1990s, and he has collaborated with hip hop artists. In spite of his superstar status in France and his homeland Algeria, his popularity in the US, the UK and other countries has been limited to a small but devoted cult following.

Nando Lauria

Brazilian guitarist Nando Lauria graduated from Berklee in 1988, Nando was invited to join The Pat Metheny Group for a series of shows at the NightStage Club in Cambridge, Mass. That was the beginning of a musical relationship that eventually resulted in Nando becoming a permanent member of the group. As all members, Nando is an accomplished, multi-talented musician who brings to the group his unique Brazilian flavor as a singer as well as playing guitars, percussion, flughorn and more. Like most Brazilian musicians he learned his instruments by ear.

Why Do We Dance?

Erik Hoffman "Contradictations"
Chapter 1: Why Do We Dance?




In past cultures the people's dance was far more connected to their experience of the universe. Many cultures believed if they didn't dance, the harvest would fail, the rain would not come, the sun would fail to rise, or the community would dwindle and die. When I'm leading a walk through for a dance, I often joke about how a figure used to be a part of a fertility rite. Actually, this is not a joke. Communities used to be small. Transportation did not permit distant travel, therefore, you knew your neighbors. People died younger and many young ones did not survive. A community's life depended on abundant harvest, both of crops and babies. The fertility of the community was its preservation.

Now we live a different life. Our communities are often based on common interests, no matter how spread out we are. Our modes of travel make distances small. The local community no longer holds the same importance in our lives. Most likely we don't know our neighbors. Harvest is a name brand we buy at the store. The old rites no longer hold the same significance.

We need a new reason to perform our rituals. Often these are exercise, camaraderie, contact, love of the music, love of the dance, and enjoyment of the communal experience. Fertility does not hold the same importance. I would venture to say we could use zero or even negative population growth rites!

Still, the question, why do we dance, continues to plague me. I have done a limited exploration, and two of the most commonly stated reasons are: first, a sense of spirituality in the dance, and second, love of the music.

In my first book, Contra Comments, I wrote about the connection between music and dance. Now, with spirituality in mind, I'd like to share some of my thoughts on why people dance.

All people seek to alter their state of consciousness. The means of doing this are myriad: drugs, food, exercise, sex, trying dangerous things, singing, chanting, sleep, meditation, and dance, to name only a few. Spiritual pursuits alter and expand our consciousness by prayer and meditation. Forms of meditation include singing, playing music, and dancing. It seems that altering consciousness is a distinctly natural thing to do.



One state we humans seek is the state of, "no thought." In this state we are, "in the moment," it is a form of trance. It feeds the spirit, lifts us to new awarenesses, and feels good! Dance and music tend to bring us to this state. During repetitive motion in time to the rhythm of music, the body can take over, and the brain can be put on hold. All forms of dance seem to engage in this. Folk dances were carried out by the local people who grew up knowing the steps. If you grow up with the dance, it's easy to do the movement without thought because you gain "body knowledge." When the body knows the motion, the brain can turn itself off. Numerous repetitions induce the trance. Even "art dancers" engage in this state; dancers practice the movements they need to perform on stage in minute detail over and over, so that when they finally dance for an audience, they can do it in this no-thought state.


In contra dance, we use a very basic step: walking in time to the music. While walking, we carry out various figures with other dancers. We learn the pattern of the dance by listening to the caller. There are relatively few figures, and most are easy, with a smooth and natural flow. In modern contras this is taken to a greater extreme by choreographing dances such that the transition from one figure to the next maintains this flow. It's easy to learn, and it's easy to connect with others. As we learn the figures and become attuned to the caller, we can stop thinking, letting the caller take that initiative. This frees us to simply move in time to the music, and revel in the connections with our fellow dancers.


So, I think one main reason we dance is to attain this no-thought state while enjoying the contact of many wonderful people. Do not discount this concept! The no thought state, the trance, is very important to our well being, and dance is a vehicle that can lead us to this place.

DJ Cheb i Sabbah

Cheb i Sabbah—a.k.a. dj Cheb i Sabbah grew up Jewish of Berber (Amazigh) descent in Constantine, Algeria, so the idea of mixing cultures was, you might say, in his blood. He moved to Paris in the 1960s, and, more or less by accident, became a DJ. By the late 1980s, he was pushing boundaries on the dance floor, seeking ways to work African, Asian, and Arabic music into the mix. Then, as the “world music” movement unfolded, Cheb i Sabbah took the inspired step of recording traditional and classical musicians himself and using those tracks to create bold, new creations—effectively, music “composed” by a DJ. With four landmark recordings under his belt, Sabbah recently returned to his native North Africa to gather the raw material for his most ambitious project to date, La Kahena, a set of eight pieces created from music by eight different acts, all featuring women singers. Sabbah remains a DJ at heart, but he is also something more—one of the most innovative forces in contemporary dance music today.

“As a DJ, you have ears,” says Sabbah. “This is your instrument; you know what you want to hear on the dance floor. A lot of genuine world music artists are fantastic musicians, composers, vocalists, but they don't know how to master and mix for the dance floor. They are not acquainted with the technicalities of how to construct songs that are DJ-friendly with breaks or stops, so you can go from here to there. With this insight and understanding, it only made sense to forge forward with producing world music for the dance floors, founding a new approach to the process, bringing our two worlds together. It's only in the last ten years that DJs have become producers, and you could say that we compose music.” The possibilities in this new realm are endless, and Sabbah makes no secret of the thrill that freedom gives him. “Musicians don't like to hear this,” he says, “but DJs have no limitations. If you take a soukous musician or a blues musician, they are very good at what they do, but if you say, ‘Oh, let's play some Balinese music now,’ they say, ‘I don't know about this.’ As a DJ, in a split-second, I can go from here to wherever the next place is.”

As DJ culture evolved, Sabbah increasingly charted his own course, until the source material he wanted to work with simply couldn’t be found on vinyl. The scratching, spinning and “beat matching” that define the modern DJ’s art are not part of his act at all, so Sabbah is used to having kids watching him pop CDs in and out of players and saying, "Man, this guy isn't doing anything.” But Sabbah has made countless converts along the way. During a recent performance at Seattle’s annual Bumbershoot Festival, he was pleased to notice “hip hop kids” recording the concert with their cell phones. “At that point, it doesn't matter if you're spinning vinyl or not,” he says, “Because the beats are there.”

Sheikh Hamza Shakkur

Sheikh Hamza Shakkur's voice emanates spiritual power that draws listeners into the mystical tradition of Sufism. Born in Damascus in 1947, Sheikh Shakkur is a quranic reader and hymnist. He is also the choirmaster of the Munshiddin (reciters) of the Great Mosque in Damascus and serves at official religious ceremonies in Syria, where he is immensely popular. His bass voice with its richly rounded timbre has made him one of the foremost Arab vocalists. Shakkur is the disciple of Said Farhat and Tawfiq al-Munajjid and feels the responsibility to assure the continuity of the repertoire in the Mawlawiyya (Mevlevi in Turkish) order.

Damascus was the capital of the Ummayyad dynasty and a principal stage in the pilgrimage to Mecca. The Sufi mystical brotherhood known as Mawlawiyya met in places known as zawiya and adopted the original chants grouped in suites (waslat) in particular modes (maqamat) and rhythms (iqaat). The Great Ummayyad Mosque of Damascus possesses a specific vocal repertoire, where sacred suites are known as a nawbat, a term originally used for the secular songs developed in Arab Andalusia known as muwashshat. Typically accompanied by a choir, a vocalist such as Sheikh Hamza Shakkur extracts from the repertoire of the mosque the naming of God (dhikr) and the birth of the prophet (mawlid) in a serene expression that has a rigorously organized rhythm. Thus the vocalist progressively leads the assembly into a trance or a state of meditation (ta'ammul).

In the early ninth century, when the Muslim mystics organized their Sufi brotherhoods, they adopted music for their meditation as a way of reaching the state of ecstasy, a source of new vigor to the body and soul. In Sufism, sama' denotes the tradition of listening in a spiritual fashion to music of all forms. This suggests that the act of listening is spiritual, without the music or poetry being necessarily religious in content. The major preoccupation of the mystics was to give the ecstasy real content and the music true meaning.

The Mawlawiyya order was founded in Konya, Anatolia, by the Persian poet Jalal al-Din al-Rumi (1207-1273). Although the ritual is primarily associated with Turkey, local traditions have existed in Syria, Egypt, and Iraq since the 16th century. The Mawlawiyya of Damascus are very few and have been threatened with closure on many occasions. The personal prestige of Sheikh Hamza Shakkur has rescued them, for he has reached celebrity status that has allowed him to generate support for the small group.

Greg Ellis

Greg Ellis was born in Los Gatos, California. He began playing the drum set at age 13. Ellis is completely self-taught. He studied classical percussion at San Jose State University but quickly felt stifled by the rudimentary approach to percussion. He decided to put all of his energy into playing drum set and moved to Los Angeles in 1984. He shifted his focus to percussion once again, but this time to the percussion of India, the Middle East, and Africa. He became consumed with collecting instruments and music from around the world. As his exploration of the interplay between percussion instruments from various cultures deepened, Ellis discovered how important it was to record these instruments in ‘real time’, meaning no looping or sequencing. He realized that was the only way to truly tap into the pure devotional spirit of music that so many of his influences – Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Ravi Shankar, Zakir Hussain – had long been aware of.

In November 1995, Ellis happened to meet Azam Ali at a concert of the Master Musicians of Jajouka at UCLA. At a party afterwards, Greg heard Azam sing for the first time. “I had always imagined a voice in my compositions. Azam was that voice I had been hearing in my head for years.” Ellis and Ali began creating music together the very next day and world music group, Vas was born. “Once the rhythms were complete, I brought in the other musicians who helped to reveal the natural form of each piece. The musicians who took part in this project all have a deep respect for rhythm, which is exhibited in the interplay of the melodic instruments with the percussion. ”

Khan and Taschner Review

Khan and Taschner
Album Review: Black Marble & Sweet Fire

In this cool, creative transcultural fusion by Al Gromer Khan and Kai Taschner, the harmonies, melodies, and sonorities of Indian and North African music join with modern sensibilities and studio technologies, transporting listeners to a seductive landscape. Described as "a modern Mughal ambience," the music is inspired by a wistful recollection of the historic Mughal era of the declining Indian empire of the late 18th/19th century. Predominantly rhythm-activated and driven, the collaboration turns away from Khan's trademark concepts of "music from a distance" and "music as perfume" in favor of a more active mix.

Khan takes a credit for "electronic sound philosophy" in addition to sitar, surbahar (a bass sitar), and keyboards; Taschner is billed with "electronic sound design" as well as keyboards. With Khan's command of musical aesthetics and Taschner's studio mastery, plus their impeccable musicianship, the album has a lively and sumptuous crosscultural sound much greater than the sum of its parts.

Taking off from Khan's stylistic base, sitars play against synthesizers, while familiar Western percussion instruments beat against Eastern hand drums. Yet Khan and Taschner avoid the merely exotic. Instead, sophisticated Indian and middle eastern melodies join with harmonies rooted in the West, while the intricate North African rhythms imply colors and textures found only in the electronic studio. Taschner's studio techniques and sound processing layer the lyrical sonorities to build complex sounds and spectra. More than just establishing novel moods, Khan and Taschner create an alluring, seductive, sensual new world, at once spacious and intimate, rich and austere, colorful and focused.

Adam Rudolph

Since the 1970’s Rudolph has been developing his unique syncretic approach to hand drums in creative collaborations with many masters of cross-cultural and improvised music such as Sam Rivers, Pharaoh Sanders, L. Shankar, and Fred Anderson. He is known especially for his innovative small group and duo collaborations with Don Cherry, Jon Hassel, Wadada Leo Smith, and Omar Sosa.In 2001 Rudolph founded Go: Organic Orchestra a 22-piece woodwind and percussion ensemble dedicated to developing his unique compositional and rhythm concepts in a large group format. In concert, Rudolph improvisationally conducts the ensemble using his own innovative process. Originally from Chicago, composer and handrummer/percussionist Adam Rudolph has, for the past three decades, appeared at festivals and concerts throughout North & South America, Europe, Africa, and Japan.

In 1988 Rudolph began his association with the legendary Yusef Lateef, which lasts to this day. He has recorded 14 albums with Dr. Lateef including their large ensemble collaborations: “The World at Peace” (1995), “Beyond the Sky” (2000) and 2003’s “In The Garden” with Rudolph conducting his Go: Organic Orchestra. He has performed worldwide with Dr. Lateef in ensembles ranging from their acclaimed duo concerts to appearing as guest soloist with Koln, Atlanta and Detroit symphony orchestras.

Adam Rudolph is known as one the early innovators in what is now called “World Music”. In 1977 he co-founded The Mandingo Griot Society with Gambian Kora Griot, Foday Musa Suso, one of the first bands to combine African and American music. In 1988, he recorded the first fusion of American and Gnawa (Moroccan) music with Sintir player and singer Hassan Hakmoun.

From 1998 to 2001 Rudolph performed at the Festival D’Essaouira in Morocco in collaboration with many leading Gnawa Maleems (masters). For 2 of those years he was artistic director and curator of “Calling Across the Water” an acoustic collaboration between American, Bambara and Gnawa musicians at that festival.

Tabala Wolof

Tabala Wolof is the ritual drum music of a West African Sufi order, the Qadiriya of Senegal. Led by a bass drum during nighttime worship, the Qadiriya play interlocking rhythms on tuned drums to inspire ecstatic singing.

Tabala Wolof evolved in the late 1700s, when the Qadiriya arrived in Senegal. Founded in Baghdad in the 1100s, the Qadiriya is the oldest Sufi order in the world. From the order's beginning, worshipers have played drums and sung prayers to experience God's presence. In Senegal, converts from the Wolof people incorporated traditional Wolof rhythms into Qadiriya worship, to satisfy their own taste and to communicate Qadiriya messages in the Wolof language.

Abida Parveen

Abida Parveen (Urdu: عابدہ پروین), a Pakistani singer, is one of the foremost exponents of Sufi music. Her forte is the kafi and the ghazal, though she has also ventured into traditional male territory and sung qawwalis. She is known for her particularly stunning voice, as well as her vivid musical imagination. She has attained legendary status in the Indian Sub-Continent, especially within her home province of Sindh, Pakistan.
Abida was born in Larkana (Sindh province, Pakistan) in 1954. She received her musical training initially from her father, Ghulam Haider, and subsequently from Ustad Salamat Ali Khan.
She embarked upon her professional career from Radio Pakistan, Hyderabad, in 1973. Her first hit was the Sindhi song “Tuhinje zulfan jay band kamand widha”. This song had been sung by many other Sindhi singers before her, but Abida brought her own unique style to it, rooted in classical music.
Although she is associated most closely with the verses of the Sufi saint Shah Abdul Latif, she has also sung the verses of other Sufi saints, including Amir Khusrau, Bulleh Shah, Sachal Sarmast, Sultan Bahu, and others such as Kabir and Waris Shah.
In recent years, it has become fashionable to call Abida the true inheritor of the mantle of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, a giant of Sufi music who died in 1997. While such judgements are necessarily subjective, there is certainly much that Abida has in common with Nusrat. Like him, she possesses a truly magnificent voice, is unassuming despite her superstar status, and her music is informed by a deep commitment to the ideals of Sufism. For both, the act of singing is a passionate offering to God, and for both the deepest part of their magic lies in the fact that they are able to bring the listener’s heart to resonate with the music, so deeply that we ourselves become full partners in that offering.

Stroutsos and Serrie Review

In Hidden World, composers and musicians Jonn Serrie and Gary Stroutsos join to create a mesmerizing and melodic recording. Long considered to be a preeminent force in contemporary instrumental/space music, Serrie composes works that are simple and beautiful. His electronic keyboards and percussion, sonically textured and ethereal, provide the perfect musical repose for the listener. Stroutsos, an internationally known flutist and composer, combines the diverse yet complimentary sounds of Native American flutes, River cane flutes, birdcalls, whistles, and Ocarina. The entire CD is slow-paced, contemplative, and tinged with Middle Eastern percussive influences. Hidden World represents the exemplary and blessed union of two very talented individuals. It also blends perfectly the ethereal sounds of synthesizers and the earthly and languid sounds of flutes. Each track flows like river water or drifts gently like diaphanous clouds. Hidden World is a gorgeous recording and worth repeated listenings. - from aquarius-atlanta.com


Jonn Serrie is widely considered to be the most accomplished visionary composer in America, a pioneer who has partnered with astronauts John Glenn and Chuck Yeager, performed at NASA events, and the standard for Space Music worldwide.
His galactic soundscapes have been described by massage therapists and healing professionals as "a deeply peaceful oasis of sound" and an utterly lovely and truly tranquil journey to the outer reaches of the human imagination."

Gary Stroutsos’ original approach to world flute music--influenced by jazz, Afro-Cuban and Native American techniques--is inspired by traditional cultures and their reverence for the earth. His work was showcased in Ken Burns’ PBS documentary on Lewis and Clark, which led to a command performance at the White House in 1997. He is a regular guest on such syndicated programs as Echoes and Hearts of Space. Although he embraces the full spectrum of world flute music, Gary has made a distinctive contribution through his commitment to the preservation of Native American music and culture, producing and recording over 13 world flute CDs.

Origin: ?

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Thanks for reading: drop by www.myspace.com/naturalsphere for some music. -James