Interview:

It is 3:40am on December 5th 2007 and I am listening to Boubacar Traoré, contemplating this question on “The Spiritual Significance of Music”. No one is awake here but me. We just finished our album. I am excited, drained, and restless at the same time, while this computer is gleaming its white light at me, and this great singer from Mali is singing words I can’t understand. This part I love. Earlier tonight, I listened to Susana Baca, a great Peruvian singer. My Spanish is a little better than my Malian, but for the most part her lyrics elude me as well. It doesn’t matter. Her voice carries me far and I love the ride. This is a spiritual practice, surrendering to something inexplicable, and letting it take you. Listening to Jeff Buckley at Sin-e, or Thelonius Monk at the Blackhawk is like tasting a wild strawberry, somewhere out in a meadow, all by myself. I’m totally on my own, with only the music and its ribbons of sound.

Do I quiet down and pay enough attention to hear them? Do I let go and let the music overtake me? It’s precious, if even for a moment. Those glimpses of connection with beauty and magic I felt when I first started listening to music were life-lines. They made me aware of what was possible if I quiet my mind and open my ears.

“This is a spiritual practice, surrendering to something inexplicable, and letting it take you.”
– Haale Gafori, guitarist and vocalist in Haale