Clear Moon On Still Waters

These flute songs exist as a humble form of my love for Indian music. They are improvisations based on classical ragas and come from a deep place of peace and many years of devotional practice. This music is designed to create an instant atmosphere of relaxation for mind, body and spirit. It can promote both awakening and sleep....and sometimes it can even dispel traffic From the time I was a young child, I felt an overwhelming need to express my love for God and nature through music and art, and this has become a blueprint and a map for my life. These things have always been a source of extreme peace, joy and inspiration. I feel so much gratitude to be able to live this life as an artist, and to be able to share some of my music and paintings here in this small package. I sometimes find it hard to believe how the Universe lined up to allow me to connect with so many of my Indian music heros as teachers and as friends. I even had the honor of accompanying so many of them in performance as a tamboura player. For all this, I am deeply thankful to Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, Alla Rakha, Shivkumar Sharma, L. Shankar, Aashish Khan, Sultan Khan, and so many others. Thank you to bamboo flute master G.S. Sachdev, for his gift of capturing the deepest emotion within the essence of purity of sound - for his playing, teaching and lightness of being....thank you so much for having the patience to teach me from note one...and for showing me how to make chapatis and subji curry. Thank you to Zakir Hussain for friendship and inspiration for so many years, and for inviting me to play tamboura in so many great concerts. Thank you to Deepak Kumar whose beautiful singing and devotion to music has been part of my environment for so long. Thank you to Coleman Barks for inviting me to accompany him musically on so many Rumi poetry adventures. Thank you to Hamza El Din for invaluable friendship, inspiration and laughter. We miss you so much. Thank you to Alex De Grassi, my guitar hero and friend, who helped so much to jumpstart this project. Thank you to Rick Hall who is an amazing sound engineer, Harmony Grisman for endless wisdom and hilarity, Rehana Hamid for egging me on until I did this, and Michael Green who rescued me from not knowing graphic design....and I thank my parents and beautiful aunties for their steadfast support and encouragement. Most of all, I am grateful for my beloved Sufi Sheikh, M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen who made all of this disappear, and replaced it with the infinite, invisible current of God's Divine Love, Grace and Mercy.