India CDs

1. De Lory, Donna: Lover & Beloved and Lover & Beloved Radio Mixes.

2. Kaur, Sada Sat: Shashara and Angels' Waltz

3. Stringer, Dave: Mala and Japa

 Although relatively new to the world of chant (only six years at the time of these releases in 2004), Donna De Lory is already getting a reputation as an innovative new voice to watch for. Her voice is more modern than say Sada Sat Kaur; more like a post-Madonna voice with an occasional little-girl quality.   Donna De Lory does not devote her entire career to chant and that may be part of what makes her changing different and appealing.

 She does appear with Dave Stringer's Kirtan Band from time to time, as well as with her own group. THE LOVER & THE BELOVED is her first album of mantra.   I've never heard Hare Krishna sung with such skill and passion. Modern studio techniques help keep it interesting.

 Donna has released various mixes of all these tunes: healing mantras at the disco? Wow! Who ever dreamed this could happen?

 If the regular version of LOVER & THE BELOVED isn't electronic or danceable enough for you, try the RADIO MIXES cd version: There are more mixes of her 'hit' 'Covinda Jaya Jaya'. Check out the drums and other percussion effects such as cascading chorus. 

 The late 1960s were never like this; not with mantras or chant anyway. We've come a long way.

 Remember the folk singers from both the USA and the U.K. in the 1960s? Some had beautiful voices, some became famous folk-rockers, some disappeared, some became spiritualists.

 Sada sat Kaur is a spiritual singer or chanter whose music is derived from the Sink spiritualists of India. She blends Indian chanting with USA-style folk and country: just the opposite of so many rockers who became enthralled with Indian music and used the 'exotic' sounds of India to color UK American pop songs.

 So imagine, if you will, a UK or American folk singer changing Indian spiritual chant using Western instruments such as acoustic guitar, but with tablas.   This is the main sound of SHASHARA. On ANGELS'  WALTZ this idea is expanded with electric instruments like steel guitar and a stronger, almost pop-rock, vocal delivery.

 Sada Sat Kaur could have been a great secular singer. Her voice on ANGELS' WALTZ actually reminds this reviewer of the great Tracy Nelson.

 If you love chant, Sada Sat Kaur will knock you out: if, like me, chant is not your main thing, you'll be enthralled by her voice and musical concepts, but will keep wishing for the lyrics to change instead of the constant repetition so necessary to chant.

  Dave Stringer is a singer/chanter/musician who blends modern Western musical sounds like a soft rock beat with electric and acoustic guitars and the drama of modern pop with traditional spiritual chants from India.

 Though not blessed with a voice as beautiful as Sada Sat Kaur, he makes up for it by having a very strong knowledge of traditional Indian chant and by being a multi-instrumentalist who knows how to call when looking for that particular sound he hears in his head.

 Thirty-five or forty years ago Westerners chanting spiritual sounds from India were nearly always boring and quite often out of tune.   Dave Stringer and other artists on Ajna Music have opened my eyes to how much has changed.

 Dave has so many different musical influences and he's not afraid to blend them together. Fun? With chant? Isn't this serious stuff? Yes and no: Dave feels chanting alone can be very useful and spiritually uplifting, even if you don't follow his spiritual beliefs. 

 You can believe or not believe, but you should enjoy his refreshing attitude and Dave's moving style of chant, called Kirtan.

 Although born in India, Kiran Ahluwalia was partially raised in new Zealand and Canada, where she now resides, and sings the style of music so popular in India and Pakistan known as Ghazal.

 The world's most popular Ghazal singer was Nusrat Fatah Ali Khan of Pakistran, and Najma Aktar of England also sings in this style. Readers familiar with her recordings may want to check out Kiran Ahluwalia, who also blends some Western instrumentation into her music.  Unlike Najma, however, she confines her backup to acoustic instruments and doesn't sing any songs in English.

 Our two favorite tunes on her self-titled album include backup by Cape Breton (Celtic style) fiddler Natalie MacMaster - not because the Celtic feel of these cuts is so different from the Indian music, but because it blends in so well that the casual listener is not even aware that another musical tradition has been added: it all blends together so seamlessly that we didn't even notice until the third listen!

 This is the way cross-cultural fusion should be: it should sound perfectly natural, not forced: Kiran's voice is superb but subtle. No drama her; just great quality.

  On KHAYAL-SAGA Shweta Jhaveri continues to astound with her classical North Indian or Hindustani vocals.   When I was a boy you had to travel to India to hear this type of music: now this amazing singer not only has her recordings available in Northern California, but lives here.

 If you have ever listened to Indian classical musicians, you can't help but be amazed at their technique on various string instruments such as sitar, sarangi, sayod, veena, etc. If you've had the pleasure of catching any of these musicians live, you've probably heard them warming up with a singing of musical scales - perhaps you've even heard some great Indian pop singers - but almost nothing prepares you for what Shweta Jhaveri can do with her voice: for Shaweta Jhaveri is to the raga for voice what Ravi Shankar is to the raga for sitar.

 On KHAYAL-SAGA we have two ragas: 'Raaga Puridhanshree' is thirty-five minutes long, a serious sort of evening raga; and 'Raaga Bhairzvi' is a somewhat lighter raga devoted to the playfulness of Krishna -  it's only ten minutes in length.

 KHAYAL-SAGA is Shweta Jhaver's third cd - and a winner.

  Susheela Raman is originally from Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon: the big land of the Southern coast of India. The culture here is very similar to that of India, so it was a big surprise to hear the sound of one of Ethiopia's biggest hits coming out of the speakers on the first song 'Love Trap' - however, Susheela reworks the song and sings  it in English.

 A keyboard (synthesizer) solo does sound vaguely Indian and on cut 2, 'Sarash', it does sound like we're near India - until  the flamenco guitar comes in.  Susheela obviously listens to many styles of music and likes to collaborate with musicians with dissimilar backgrounds. Does it work? You bet: the amazing thing is how seamless and natural it all sounds.  Somehow Susheela and her cohorts make it sound as if all these various elements have blended together for centuries: even the Tuvan throat singer - wow!  Her voice sounds so Western on some cuts, then so Indian on others. Her diction is perfect.

 LOVE TRAP is Susheela's second offering and is closer to her live act than her first cd SALT RAIN: this is as good as world music can get!

 'Moksha', the Hindu equivalent of the Buddhist term 'nirvana', has taken sarod master Amhad Ali Khan sixty years to obtain spiritually - but it has taken over 200 years for his family to reach this place musically.

  Amjad's great, great, great grandfather brought the Afghan 'rubab' instrument to India and began the chain of modifications resulting in the modern-day sarod, an instrument which sounds a bit like a sitar to most Western ears, but with a deeper, richer tone and less drone strings.

 Since a sarod is held much like a guitar and is played with a pick, I long thought it would pass the sitar in popularity in the West, particularly America, as sarod master Usted Ali Akbar Khan opened his music school in California.

 Like other Indian classical musicians, Amjad Ali Khan plays and composes in the raga form - however, unlike most ragas, his pieces are relatively short.   There are eight of them on MOKSHA: most cds only carry one to three ragas, as they're long compositions.

 Like all the men in his family for hundreds of years Amjad's father was a sarod master and composer. He thought most ragas were too long and filled with repetition. Amjad follows his father's example.

 In this modern hectic world full of interferences, it's nice to have a cd of great Indian classic music that I can leave and come back to without having to start all over to get back in the mood.   Yet, if you want to listen to the whole cd as a unit, it all fits together very nicely; similar to a performance of Western classical music with its shifting movements.

 The only piece that totally stands out on its own is the last piece, the tune 'Moksha' itself, which also holds a chanted vocal section.

 Amjad gives up the sarod playing on two tracks to give his two sons a track each to shine on: they both play so much like Dad, I didn't even realize anyone other than Amjad was playing until I read the liner notes.

 So MOKSHA is not just one man's album: it's a family's legacy - a legacy over two hundred years old that will continue long after Amjad Ali Khan leaves this earth.

 Nirvana, indeed.