Michael Robinson will premiere and discuss his new album, Green Garnets, together with Ruby Soul, and selections from Purple and Brown and Hamoa.

From Michael Robinson:
I compose for close, even meditational, listening on both intellectual and spiritual planes, including elements of adbhuta rasa (wonderment, exhilaration), shanta rasa (tranquility, peace), and veera rasa (majesty, valor). Rasas are nine transcendental emotional states or sentiments forming the aesthetic basis of Indian music, drama and dance, reflecting the belief that all of human experience may be described as expressing one or several combined rasas. In confluence with the concept of rasa, every composition has a unique personality I endeavor to enhance through vibrant musical color, melody, rhythm, language and architecture. 

Azure Miles Records was formed to present the changing seasons of my music. The name of my label is after William Butler Yeats, “Maybe in some isle of isles, In the South Seas azure miles…” and I now have a catalog of 182 albums from 1991 to the present. Cover art for each album uses hand silkscreen and hand woodblock printed papers from Japan, India, and Nepal. I choose these designs to reflect and enhance the music.

From Green Garnets liner notes by Michael Robinson:
Green Garnets was engendered being a musical meditation on lost friendship and lost innocence conjured by early teenage adventures, the prevailing rasa suggesting sadness, known in Hindustani music as karuna rasa. However, adding emotional complexity, karuna is also the word Buddha used for compassion, and every listener hears music differently, including variously for one’s self at different moments in time. And there is no limitation for the possible range of emotions Green Garnets may spark going beyond those touched upon here.

Beginning with a potent sequence of chords, I colored them with rich vocal textures. Fortunately, I was able to find a specific Hammond organ timbre that meshes perfectly with the vocal choir, including projecting the gloriously grand image of a church organ playing an Indian raga. The liquidity of the organ encompasses pleasingly varied tone colors over a span of registers. Both the organ and choir follow Just Intonation.

After the fact, I realized how a raga befitting my chords is none other than Kirvani,one of the most sublime ragas from India, with origins in Carnatic music, later adopted by Hindustani musicians. Joining Kirvani fleetingly is Asavari Thaat, the tonal difference being Shuddha Nishada for the former and Komal Nishada for the latter.
At the time I created my aural realization of the notated score, the mournful news that Shivkumar Sharma had left us reached me, and there was an immediate connection with Green Garnets because Kirvani was one of his favorite ragas, those recordings and videos by Sharma having touched me profoundly.

Adding to the vocal choir and organ, two twelve-matra drum ostinati alternate, the second pattern deeper sounding and more driving than the first. I found it especially dramatic to silence the drums at a particular interval, making the overall rhythmic cycle for Green Garnets no less than 132 matras, complimenting the chordal ostinato of 16 matras.
It may be that the Image of Green Garnets overshadows the Language, even if the Language provides essential detail being born from jazz, Indian classical, European classical and rock at once, this being my richly varied musical heritage.

For more info visit azuremilesrecords.com

TRACKLIST:
1. Green Garnets
2. Ruby Soul: First Part
3. Ruby Soul: Second Part
4. Ruby Soul: Third Part
5. Purple and Brown (from Purple and Brown)
6. Foreign River (from Purple and Brown)
7. A Danish Princess (from Purple and Brown)
8. Pink Jade (from Hamoa)