R. CARLOS NAKAI

 

 

Music Anthology

 

Natives

Players

R. Carlos Nakai, Peter Kater


Review

"This collaboration with new age keyboard star Peter Kater is the album that introduced Nakai mainstream record buyers. On its release, Natives stayed on Billboard's New Age Chart for almost a year, paving the way for the current renaissance in the Native flute. Once again the music is totally improvised, with Kater's romantic melodies and fat, left-hand chord clusters on the concert grand, providing a fertile environment for Nakai's flights of improvisational fancy. And although Kater is an impressive piano stylist, this is clearly Nakai's show; the brittle tones of his Eagle-bone whistle, and his measured chanting to the accompaniment of an Algonquin turtle rattle always move the music to a higher plane." --j. poet


 

 

Selections



Canyon Trilogy:Native American Flute Music

Players

R. Carlos Nakai, Peter Kater


Review

"Nakai's free improvisations on this album are based on his impressions of the Anasazi and Sinagua sites, ancient cliff dwellings that were home to communities of Native people thousands of years ago. By using the Roland SDE 3000 Digital Delay system, Nakai is able to play duets with his own echo, in an effort to emulate the echoes of the past that haunt these ruins. On this recording, Nakai's flute sounds even more plaintive than usual, as if the spirits of these forgotten ancestors had entered into the studio to fill his playing with the whispered reverberations of their ancient ways. This is one of Nakai's most deeply felt recordings, one that resonates with a deep, melancholy yearning." --j.poet


 

 

Selections



Carry The Gift

Players

R. Carlos Nakai, William Eaton


Selections



 

Changes:Native American Flute Music

Players

R. Carlos Nakai


Review

"Nakai's first recording of Native flute music, originally released in a limited edition of 250 cassettes, taps into something deeply spiritual in the human psyche. There are traditional Native songs from the Zuni, Lakota, and Blood tribes, but most of the material is original, inspired by Nakai's travels throughout the Southwest. The tone of Nakai's flute is always full and warm; it caresses your ears like the memory of a summer breeze. Yet despite the measured tempos and the pastoral mood, there is an energetic quality to the improvisations that makes the heart want to spread its wings and take flight. Nakai's success shows once again how powerful simple, folk-based melodies can be when they're played by a master musician." --j. poet

 


 

 

Selections



Cycles, Volume 2

Players

R. Carlos Nakai, William Eaton


 

Selections



Desert Dance

Players

R. Carlos Nakai


Review

"R. Carlos Nakai at his best! DESERT DANCE is R. Carlos Nakai's musical interpretation of his experiences in the sacred place of his ancestors, Colorado's San Luis Valley. Like his critically acclaimed 1988 release, SUNDANCE SEASON, the Navajo-Ute musician also recorded this album in the Lindisfarne chapel, a uniquely resonant structure situated within this dramatic expanse of holy ground. Many tribes, from the early pueblo dwellers to the Kiowa, Arapaho, and Comanche, have inhabited this alpine valley over time. Near Alamosa, Colorado, where the Great Sand Dunes lie, is the site of the Navajo's eastern sacred mountain, Blanca Peak, and the center of the Ute world.

Nakai weaves his improvisations on the Native American wooden flute, nose flute, drums, rattle, and voice into poetic meditations on the land and its history. During "Ancient Voices", he delicately plays a Southern Plains war dance drum with finger taps and brushes to reveal a hidden palette of sound, much like the whisper of spirits within the valley. The joyful spectacle of desert birds frolicking upon waves of transparent air currents is depicted on "Turquoise Swallows Dance", while the wind's daily moods are choreographed in temperate summer breezes, dust devils, and cloud formations on "Wind Dance". Other selections deftly combine the plaintive, yet, potent sounds of Nakai's heritage to explore the mystery and unique beauty of this sacred territory."

 


 

 

Selections

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 


 

 



R. CARLOS NAKAI PART II



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