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Kirtan in a New Age: What’s in a Grammy Category Name?

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“Genre unknown.”  Have you ever gotten this message when you download a kirtan CD into iTunes?  We get it a lot.

More often than not, the iTunes database pulls up a blank in the “Genre” category.  Sometimes it pulls up as World Music, sometimes Alternative, sometimes Folk (Shyamdas in particular), and sometimes — get this! — Country (GuruGanesha’s Kundalini Surjhee). Occasionally, the disc is downright  Unclassifiable (Marti Walker’s rEVOLution).  And yes, sometimes it even registers as New Age, which usually elicits a sarcastic snicker from this downloader.

New Age?  Hasn’t that almost become a kind of throwback-to-the-70’s joke?  Something that is spoken of with “air quotes,” maybe with a roll of the eyes thrown in?  Is kirtan New Age?  Does it want to be?

Well, according to the Grammys, it is.  That’s the category for which Krishna Das is in the running for Best Album, marking an historic moment in bhakti history (watch the livestream Sunday, Feb. 10 from 1–3:30 p.m. PT at GRAMMY.com and CBS.com.).  No, he’s not the first kirtan artist to get a Grammy nomination — Jai Uttal earned that honor back in 2002 with his barrier-breaking, genre-bending Mondo Rama.  But this is Krishna Das.  The Yoga Rock Star.  The King of Kirtan.  The Chantmaster.  And Live Ananda, the recording nominated for this year’s Best New Age Album, is pure and traditional unadulterated call-and-response chanting.  In the live.  No apologies for the harmonium.

Will the tux be in plaid?

Still, we have a hard time imagining Krishna Das describing himself as a “New Age artist.”  We could be way off base here, but we’re not seeing it.  You?

Either way, that’s where we are folks.  We don’t know about you, but we’re putting our bets on Krishna Das actually winning this thing.  Why else would he be performing live at the Grammys pre-broadcast livestream? (New Age nominees are never featured on the Grammys live television broadcast, which is reserved for the big “Mainstream” categories.)  We’ll eat crow if we’re wrong.  Whilst brooding.  Heavily.  And chanting along with the Cosmic Kirtan Posse at Ananda Ashram to soothe our pain.

But let’s just say it happens:  Krishna Das wins the Grammy for Best New Age Album.  That would put him in the same Winner’s Circle as Paul Winter (6 times), Enya (4-time winner), Yanni, Pat Metheny, and David Darling, among others you’ve probably never heard of.  Notably, Peter Gabriel won the award for Best New Age Performance in 1990.  KD’s competition for the award this year?  L.A.-based pianist Omar Akram; Michael Brant DiMaria, an integrative psychotherapist who creates music for relaxation and meditation; Celtic artist Loreena McKennitt; renowned cellist David Darling; pianist/composer/producer Peter Kater, and Steven Halpern, whose 1975 release, Spectrum Suite, often gets credit for beginning the whole “New Age Music” movement.

There are a couple interesting kirtan connections among these other nominees.  David Darling collaborated with Canadian kirtan artist Brenda McMorrow on her 2010 album Love Abounds. Peter Kater just last year released Heart of the Universe with Sikh-tradition chantress Snatam Kaur, and his 2012 nomination, Light Body, features vocalist and executive producer Trish Bowden.  We’re clueless, we confess, about the others on the list, but a quick review of their offerings puts them pretty far away on the musical spectrum from call-and-response chanting ala Live Ananda.

Incidentally, in the World Music category, both Ravi Shankar (for The Living Room Sessions, Pt. 1) and his daughter, Anoushka Shankar (for Traveller) are nominated for Best Album.  Which makes us wonder why Krishna Das isn’t in the World Music category.  Live Ananda even comes up on iTunes as World Music.

Indefinable?

New Age music has always been difficult to define, seeming more like a catch-all for downtempo “relaxation music” than anything else.  Early pioneers include the aforementioned Steven Halpern and English composer Brian Eno, who is credited as a principal innovator of so-called ambient music.  New Age  first earned its own Grammy category in 1987 — about the same time New Age bins started showing up in major record stores and big record labels starting paying attention to the genre.

The dawning of the New Age Grammy category was not met with glee by all.  Music critic Steven Rea, writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1987, said: “It’s a category of music to which few artists want to be assigned – the winner of the Grammy is likely to accept his award with a bag over his head – and which even fewer can define.”  The same year, Musician magazine predicted that “all new-age artists will claim to be ‘not really new-age.’ ”

My how things have changed.  Or not.

Parsing the Name Game

All of this talk brings up a related issue that is astir throughout the kirtan world: what to call kirtan.  “Kirtan,” some have argued, is just too hard for Westerners to wrap their tongues around, let alone their minds.  A few artists are steadfastly moving toward the use of “mantra music” to define what they do; among them are Gaura Vani, a Krishna devotee who typically practices traditional call-and-response Sanskrit chanting (unless he’s in his role as one-fourth of The Hanumen, in which case all categorization goes right out the window), and GuruGanesha Singh, best known as the long-time touring partner and manager to Snatam Kaur, who infuses sacred Gurmukhi-language chants with funked-up rhythms and soaring electric-guitar riffs. 

The new Krishna Das channel on Sirius XM radio eschews both these monikers in favor of “Yoga Radio” — a decision that came from Sirius, KD told us in an interview.  Nowhere in the description of the channel will you find the word kirtan, but you will find “Chanting, sacred and spiritual music” in the channel’s subhead.

Kirtan. Mantra music.  Yoga music.  Chant.  Sacred music. Spiritual music.  World music. Alternative, Folk, Country…turns out there are almost as many names out there for this “music genre” as there are artists presenting it.  Which begs the even bigger question: is it a “music genre” at all?   

Or is the Mantra Revolution simply “Unclassifiable”?

What do you call it?

Also see:
Krishna Das’ Live Ananda Earns Grammy Nomination; Kirtan Grammy Would Be A First
www.krishnadas.com
Live Ananda via Krishna Das
Live Ananda on iTunes

from KrishnaDas.com

 

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Dazzling.

We’re not sure she’d call herself a “wallah,” but regardless of labels, Jai-Jagdeesh is a rising star in the chant world.  Her music is firmly rooted in the Sikh/Kundalini tradition of Gurmukhi-language chants (the tradition of Snatam Kaur, most famously), but with a modern edge that gives her music almost a pop-inspired feel.  And she’s not above breaking out in an old favorite — like she did at Sat Nam Fest with a cover of Leonard Cohen’s luscious Hallelujah…

 

Nothing Sikh about that, and the hard-core kundalini yogis at the festival ate it up.

Which, as an aside, proves a point about Sat Nam Fest that maybe some of us — including this writer, until I went to the festival — don’t completely get:  it’s not ALL hard-core kundalini yoga, and you don’t have to be a hard-core kundalini yogi (whatever that is) to love this festival.  I’m not, and I did.  (Of course, there is plenty of hard-core yoga on the bill — you wouldn’t believe how long Gurmukh had those yogis holding tree pose! I, of course, needed to take pictures…ahem.)

Jai-Jagdeesh, with Tripp Dudley on percussion and Leonardo Har Prakash on sitar

One of the highlights for this SNF newbie was, without doubt, Jai-Jagdeesh’s set on Saturday morning (it started at 8:30, which was like, lunchtime for some of the hard cores who had been up since 4 a.m. for morning prayers). 

Now, we may have been biased going into it, because GuruGanesha Singh, the founder (and now minority owner) of Spirit Voyage, the record label that produces all of the Sat Nam Fest artists, had singled out Jai-Jagdeesh as someone not to miss.  He called her style “a little bit more eclectic” in comparison to the stalwart of the label, Snatam Kaur, or Nirinjan Kaur, a young Sikh artist Singh also proclaimed “up-and-coming.”   (Both Snatam and Nirinjan, Singh said in his inimitable style, are “like, realllly ‘Sikh-y’.”)

Nirinjan Kaur, also rising...

Sat Nam Fest, Singh pointed out, has been a boon to young artists like Jai-Jagdeesh and Nirinjan, because it gives them an opportunity to “get out in front of a bigger audience.” In the case of Jai-Jagdeesh, who debuted on the festival schedule last year, “it was a real confidence-builder.  People responded really favorably to her.”

We can vouch for that reaction at this year’s East Coast fest (in Waynesboro, Penn. Sept. 13-16).  The crowd loved her.  They cheered when the curtain first drew back to reveal her at her harmonium, percussionist Tripp Dudley on her right and sitar player Leonardo Har Prakash on her left.  They applauded long and strong after each song.  They whistled and hooted when she stood up to offer a Bollywood-inspired classical Indian dance piece (you’ll see why in the video below). 

It’s clear this young woman, steeped in yogic tradition and Indian music since she was a child, hardened up on the streets of L.A. pursuing an acting career, then resoftened perhaps as sacred music reclaimed the forefront of her life, is a favorite daughter of the kundalini crowd — and beyond. 

Just look at what she does with her neck…

How does she do that?

Jai-Jagdeesh’s debut album, I Am Thine, has reportedly been one of Spirit Voyage’s top sellers in recent months.  No wonder; it’s a luscious mix of traditional Gurmukhi chants and love-infused English lyrics, backed up by the exquisite musicianship of Krishan on piano, guitar and gentle percussion and Hans Christian on cello, sitara, sarangi and nickelharpa.  She recently launched an ambitious tour in the Eastern U.S. and Canada that wraps up Oct. 13 in Vienna, Va.

For more, also see:
www.spiritvoyage.com/Jai-Jagdeesh
www.satnamfest.com

 

Additional Coverage from The Bhakti Beat’s Big Bhavalicious Adventure to Omega Chant, Bhakti Fest West and Sat Nam Fest East:
 
Bringing Home The Bhav: Bhakti-Fried Bliss-Chaser Faces ‘The Laundry’ of Life (Video)
With Deva’s Miten, Krishna Das Does Dylan and Shyamdas Does the Blues (Videos)
‘It Is Not Dying:’ Geoffrey Gordon (1952-2012) Remembered in Bhakti Fest Tributes and Haunting Video
Photo Journals from all 3 festivals on our facebook page.
Check our YouTube channel for the latest video uploads.
 
Stay tuned to this site for more coverage coming soon! Subscribe here.
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In the Bhav at Bhakti Fest Finale

“After the ecstasy, the laundry.”  In those few words author Jack Kornfield captured the essence of the seeker’s search for that “something else” and the back-to-reality recognition that, having tasted it even fleetingly, one cannot escape the laundry of life that awaits us in this 3-D world. 

Go ahead and taste the ecstasy.  Savor it.  Relish every moment of it.  But don’t forget to wash your underwear.

Kornfield’s popular title rings in my ears as I return home after an 18-day sojourn chasing the bhav from one end of the country to the other.  The Bhakti Beat’s Big Bhavalicious Adventure took us from Omega’s Ecstatic Chant in the heart of the “Bhajan Belt” in Rhinebeck, N.Y., to the high desert of Joshua Tree, Cali. for the 4th Annual Bhakti Fest West, and then back East to the cornfields of Pennsylvania for Sat Nam Fest, the kundalini yoga and chant retreat organized by Spirit Voyage Music.  Sandwiched in between was the  NYC premeire of Jeremy Frindel’s new documentary, “One Track Heart: The Story of Krishna Das.” 

That’s a lot of kirtan, even for a confessed junkie.  

Me & my cameras, chasing the bhav. (Photo courtesy of Maie P Jyoti)

I savored it.  Relished every moment.  And in the end, couldn’t wait to come home, with a resolute determination to bring the bhav right back with me.  Surely this immersion in the ocean of devotion, this tidal wave of spiritual energy generated from the ultimate Kirtan Trifecta — or Tri-Festa, as GuruGanesha Singh labeled my journey — would keep me high on life for days, weeks, maybe even months, right?  Right?

Ha.  Tell that to the dirty underwear.  And the stack of bills screaming for my attention.  And the deadlines looming for the day job that pays the stack of bills.  Videos to edit, pictures to post, blogs to write.  A boyfriend who has forgotten what I look like and secretly wants to heave my laptop out the window.  And so on. 

The crash came hard and fast.  Leaving me wondering:  Where’s the bhav now?

Easier said than done...

This, I gather, is where that “great magic trick of existence” comes in…how to “snatch the eternal from the desperately fleeting,” as Tennessee Williams wrote.  How to sustain the “blissful love or loving bliss,” as the religious studies scholar David Haberman defined “the bhav” in a workshop at Bhakti Fest, even when the fest is over and we’re faced with the unpleasant minutiae of daily life.  

Krishna Das has said it in so many workshops: “When you leave here, you’ve still got to pay the bills.”  His advice?  “Practice.”  He doesn’t care if you chant, meditate, do asanas…whatever;  just do something. “There’s a reason they call it practice,” he always says.  You’ve got to do it.  As in, every day, chant fest or no.

Note to self:  a crowd of 5,000 isn’t required.  A festival of One works too.

Shyamdas, the respected author, Sanskrit scholar, and master of Hare Katha (sacred teachings interwoven with bhav-inducing kirtan)  was asked what it means to “be in the bhav” during the Bhakti Panel workshop on Day 4 of Bhakti Fest.  Among other gems you can hear in the video below, he said this: 

“The bhav makes us understand that there is eternity within the present moment, and that makes the individual unconcerned with what is going to happen next, because everything is already a perfect manifestation as it is.”


 

In the bhav, Shyamdas told us, “everything is directed for the pleasure of the Beloved.”  By which he means the Supreme.  The Divine.  It matters not if you call it God, Krishna, Christ, Grace, Universal Oneness, Higher Self — label it as you will, or not at all.  The point is that when everything we do is offered up to the greater good, then — and only then — can we get anywhere near the bhav.  

Need a pay-off?  Shyamdas says: “When a person can have that attitude, I think they receive a response from the Source Bhav.” 

“A response from the Source Bhav.”  I like the sound of that.  I want that.

 

Tulasi & Purusartha Dasa

A remarkable woman I met on my journey, Tulasi Devi Dasi (whose husband, Purusartha Dasa, plays bass for The Hanumen), made this exact point to me a week before I heard Shyamdas say it, in a casual breakfast conversation at Omega the morning after four days of Ecstatic Chant.  She told an innocuous story of a large gathering at their home in the community of Krishna devotees in Alachua, Fla.  She said all the preparation and labors were seen not as effort, but as joy, because all was done in service to Krishna.  Every act, no matter how small, was offered up as a prayer to the Beloved. 

Her words had that goosebump effect on me.  You know, that tingly “hit” you get when something resonates deeply in your soul.  I nearly wept right there in the cafeteria. (Chanting for four days will do that to you.) 

Gong bath at Sat Nam Fest

Tulasi’s words stayed with me. 

“I offer my service to Krishna” became my mantra (I would interchange Krishna with Christ, God, Universal Oneness, The Divine, because to me they are all one).  I did this as I posted pictures.  I did it as I wrote emails and returned phone calls.  I did it as I sweated my way through NY rush-hour traffic to make my flight at JFK after Google Maps sent me on a ridiculously convoluted route.  And so on. 

Well, call me crazy, but you know what?  Doors started opening.  Interviews came through.  Connections were made.  Relationships were healed with a hug.  Helpful people were showing up precisely at the right time.  Oh yeah, and I made the plane.  With perfect timing.

I ran into Tulasi again on Day 3 of Bhakti Fest, five days later and 3,000 miles from our breakfast chat.  I told her how she had inspired me with her words, how it had made all the difference.  We hugged.  I wept.  She wept.  (Chanting for eight days will do that to you.) 

So here’s what I’ve learned…

You can chase the bhav all you want — and you might even snatch it for a fleeting moment.  But until you can find that sweet spot of devotion and gratitude, that attitude that life is a gift — that “ever-expansive loving feeling that we’re all thirsting for,” as Haberman put it — right in your own home, your own heart, even with the stack of bills screaming and the deadlines looming and the boyfriend glowering, you’re just running on empty. 

Make your life a prayer.  Then stand back and watch what unfolds. 

Sridhar Silberfein: Grace in Action

Or, as Bhakti Fest founder and executive producer Sridhar Silberfein so says:

“Do what you can.  Then get out of the way and let Grace take over.”

 

Additional Coverage from The Bhakti Beat’s Big Bhavalicious Adventure to Omega Chant, Bhakti Fest West and Sat Nam Fest East:
 
Bringing Home The Bhav: Bhakti-Fried Bliss-Chaser Faces ‘The Laundry’ of Life (Video)
Wallah to Watch: Jai-Jagdeesh, Songstress & Classical Dance Artist, Dazzles at Sat Nam Fest (Videos)
With Deva’s Miten, Krishna Das Does Dylan & Shyamdas Does the Blues (Videos)
‘It Is Not Dying:’ Geoffrey Gordon (1952-2012) Remembered in Bhakti Fest Tributes and Haunting Video
Photo Journals from all 3 festivals on our facebook page.
Check our YouTube channel for the latest video uploads.
 
Stay tuned to this site for more coverage coming soon!  Subscribe here.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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In the final shows of their inaugural tour, The GuruGanesha Band will be joined by Professor Paramjeet Singh, a scholar, raga historian, and master of classical Indian music who was GuruGanesha Singh’s own raga teacher.

“People are in for a treat,” GuruGanesha told The Bhakti Beat.  “He is an amazing vocalist with a five-octave range.”

GuruGanesha said Professor Paramjeet composed “a good portion” of the music for Aval Allah, a track on GuruGanesha’s latest solo CD, Kundalini Surjhee.  The song is based around a classical Indian raga called Bhairavi, he said, to which GuruGanesha added an intro and bridges that showcase the band’s virtuosity in strings and vocals.

When we heard The GuruGanesha Band play Aval Allah live at their June 2 concert, we were mesmerized.  It had a primal feel — almost tribal — that resonated deeply.  GuruGanesha told us that Middle Eastern/Northern African sound comes from a flatted second, sixth and seventh in the scale. (Music buffs know what he’s talking about, right?)  All we know is this was a prayer for the senses.  Rich layers of musical tapestry enveloped the ancient lyrics, punctuated by the very modern twang of GuruGanesha’s smokin’ electric guitar work, Michelle Hurtado’s soaring vocals, and the almost unearthly wails of Hans Christian’s cuticle-shredding fingerwork on the saranghi (just watch the pained expressions on his face in the video below).

Hans Christian shredding cuticles on the saranghi.

Turns out it was the first time in quite awhile that the band has played this song live, GuruGanesha told us afterward.  “It felt like it really clicked.”

Um, yeah.  The crowd at the historic little town hall in Shelburne, Vt. — many of whom were experiencing “mantra music” for the first time ever — were apparently as riveted as we were.  They exploded with applause at the song’s end.

See for yourself in the video below.  And if you’re anywhere near Toronto or London, Ontario June 8-10, go see The GuruGanesha Band with special guest Paramjeet Singh.  We have it on good advice that they’ll be playing Aval Allah…

Also see:

The GuruGanesha Band: Making Its Mark on Mantra Music

The GuruGanesha Band Photo Album on Facebook

www.guruganesha.com

www.professorparamjeet.com

 

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Where’s the Bhav? Snatam Kaur Tours East

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Buoyed by a surprise birthday concert for none other than Oprah Winfrey and an avalanche of publicity surrounding it, Snatam Kaur is back in the East with a new band for a series of concerts and workshops in Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut and New Hampshire.

The Sikh songstress and Kundalini yogi, who practically grew up at the feet of Kundalini yoga founder Yogi Bhajan, has enchanted packed live audiences for years and has emerged, arguably, as the most widely known artist in the “sacred chant” world.   And if the Oprah story is any indication, the rest of the world may be starting to wake up.  (Does anything say “mainstream” more than Oprah?)

Answer to a Heart Prayer

Absent this tour are Snatam’s long-time travelmate, band leader and manager GuruGanesha Singh (whose own tour with The GuruGanesha Band is storming the East Coast right now) and tabla maestro Ramesh Kannan (who played two shows in Northern California with Snatam earlier this month).

The new troupe includes the brilliant guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Todd Boston (who played with Snatam for Oprah, along with Daniel Paul on tabla), Jason Parmar on tabla, and Matthew Shoening (Shane-ing) on the electric cello. Yeah, the electric cello. You gotta hear this — the usually-solo Shoening does this live-looping thing on the cello that creates layers of rhythms and depth in the music that is truly innovative.

“This is what happens when God turns a page in your life and opens your heart,” Snatam says in a new promotional video about the tour.  “This whole band came together from a prayer from our heart.”

Boston, New York and Beyond

The tour opens with two nights (5/24 and 5/25) at the historic Regent Theater in Arlington, just north of Boston. (Get tickets for Boston here.)  It will be Snatam’s third trip to Boston hosted by Shunyam Productions, the husband-and-wife team behind the Boston Yoga and Chant Fest, now in its third year and quickly making a name as one of the country’s premier annual gatherings of kirtan artists.

Awakening the Kundalini

From Boston, the band heads to New York City for a weekend workshop in which Snatam “will share the technology of Kundalini Yoga and Mantra that awakens the Kundalini energy flow within” and two evening concerts (5/26 and 5/27) at Integral Yoga NYC.  The tour continues with a concert in Washington Depot, Conn. 5/29 and a workshop in Keene, N.H. 5/30, before the group heads to Kripalu Retreat Center in Lenox, Mass. for two multi-day mantra-practice workshops — Mantras of Spiritual Warriers (6/1-6/3) and  Mantra Medicine Wheel (6/3-6/6) — where Snatam will be joined by her husband Sopurkh Singh Khalsa.

For the full schedule, visit Spirit Voyage’s Website.

Here’s a little taste of the nectar Snatam consistently delivers, from her appearance at 700 Voices Sacred Music Concert in West Branford, Conn. last May…

If you’ve never experienced the divine presence of this lit-from-within enchantress in the flowing white veils and voice of liquid velvet, well…what are you waiting for?  If you have, you know what we mean, right?

Also see:

www.snatamkaur.com

www.spiritvoyage.com

 

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