Jai Uttal Featuring Don Cherry & Laksmi Shankar* – Footprints

When I first traveled to India I was overwhelmed by an incredible variety of experiences that had no context in my life up to that point. Foremost among these was a strange and unexpected sense of home coming: of being finally released from an exile I never knew existed. And second was the absolutely mind-blowing array of sounds-music everywhere, seemingly unrelated waves washing over me. Not the music of concert halls, rather the music of temples, the train stations, the dusty back alleys and the Himalayan peaks, voices uninhibited by training but schooled by years maybe lifetimes of reaching for the eternal. Since that time I've listened, studied absorbed and dreamed of mixing these sounds with the American music on which I was raised. Sarods with synths, tablas with drum machines, ancient passions with modern technology. This album is just a beginning, the posibilities are endless when worlds so different begin to touch. - Jai Uttal

Wherever the footprint is found, that handful of dust holds the oneness of worlds - Ghalib

...Raghupati is a traditional Indian prayer which has in this modern electronic rendition been freely re-interpreted while at the same time keeping the traditional musical themes and words alive and vibrant...

[recorded and mastered digitally].