Stairway to Nirvana
Experience a journey full of the promise of peace, harmony and tranquility, venturing ever onwards towards transcending beyond this worried life to make your way on up to Nirvana.
Samir Bodhi might be your best guide on this journey today, he is a man with many accomplishments and dreams for the future. He was born in Calcutta, India and has lived in Southern California for many years now. I think of him as a superhero representing the best of Indian and American culture, he emigrated to the U.S in the 80's with an engineering degree and decided to stay after receiving his Master's and PhD in computer science from University of Central Florida. While building his career in academia – first at Georgia State University in Atlanta, later at Claremont Graduate University and USC – he simultaneously built upon the professional guitar skills he established in Calcutta to amass a sparkling resume in that world in both countries as well. His Indian based accomplishments include accompanying legends such as Hemant Kumar, Runa Laila, Bani Thakur and Hoimonti Shukla and performing on Calcutta Television with famous artists in many prestigious venues in Calcutta. In the U.S., he performed with Ghazal badshah Jagjit Singh, composed Emotional Eyes, a modern Bengali album for his wife Madhumita, and arranged and recorded the first ever Broadway-style Bengali musical "Sinbad," performed in Los Angeles in 2006.
Samir created the original music score for the 2010 independent Hollywood film "Adios Mi Amigos"; collaborated with Grammy-nominated sarod player Ustad Aashish Khan, Joey Sommerville (band musician for Prince) and Interscope recording artist Marty Cheyka; and accompanied many famous Indian singers (including Suvodeep Mukherjee, who appears on Stairway to Nirvana) at venues in Los Angeles. In 2017, Samir composed four tunes for Madhumita and Kumar Sanu's album Tum Bin: The Musical Experience, which was released to great media fanfare in Mumbai.
In academia Samir has built an even more impressive legacy, which includes being Professor and Fletcher Jones Chair of Design, Technology & Management at CGU's Center for Information Systems & Technology (CISAT) and serving as an Adjunct Professor of Design and Innovation at the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation (established by music industry legends Iovine and Dr. Dre). Samir is also considered a leading technology designer and scholar in the area of healthcare informatics, design science and networking/cybersecurity. In 2017, he was awarded the Mahtama Gandhi Pravasi Samman by NRI Welfare Society in recognition of Indians who have made their country proud abroad.
"I feel I have quite a bit of creativity in me and part of it manifests through my academic research and the other via my musical outlets," Samir confides. "Managing projects and producing music are similar in that both are linked to creative problem solving and thinking outside the box. Whether purposeful or accidental, I bring all my scholarly training into my musical projects. As the latest manifestation of this, Stairway to Nirvana is a project that fulfills my vision for creating beautiful music that brings serenity and enlightenment to people of all cultures. I am indebted to my incredible collaborators for blessing me with their tremendous talent and unique ideas. Music has the power to be a great healer of the body, mind and spirit, and beyond providing a meaningful listening experience, I would love this album to serve as a healing agent for people during this challenging time in world history."
In 2021 the originaly promised pre-COVID future beckons with an inspirational opportunity for dreaming of, and hopefully realizing, a lasting global peace. This new album from Samir Bodhi titled Stairway to Nirvana offers a reminder that the science of the structure, relation, and progression of chords, and the right voices, with all of the best stringed instruments, can assist the listener to find a perceptual property of divine music: sounds that please and fit together to bring about a feeling of complete, whole and societal friendship and harmony. We all can learn to avoid quarreling and to truly seek tranquility, finding an absence of disturbance or agitation, and can achieve a balance between "tense" and "relaxed" moments based on consonance.
For this album, the concept of Nirvana might simply be expressed as an idea of attaining peace, personal liberation found with following the practice of the noble path. Samir Bodhi has created a melodically, rhythmically and harmonically transcendent album that offers a musical roadmap to peace in these troubled times. Tranquility describes a person's disposition that is free from stress or emotion, as when exposure to natural environments, and can make a significant contribution to health and wellbeing, as well as allowing the imagination to wander.
What you will hear are traditional Indian instruments blended with synthesizers, studio effects and electric guitar in an amazing cinematic sounding production, all inspirational instrumentals with some vocals featured on several tracks. Strong, resonant sounds encouraging directed attention, bringing the listener through the stages of life, transforming from mournful to joyful, and eventually ascending to reach enlightenment, engaging with naturally restorative influences.
The album's mixer is Biswadeep Chatterjee, an award-winning sound designer, sound editor and audio mixer who is a four-time National Film Award winner for Best Audiography. The traditional instruments heard on Stairway to Nirvana include Sree Khol, Tabla, Sarod, Indian flute, and Sarangi. You will also hear state of the art synthesizers and electric guitar. Guitarist/arranger Sanjoy Das (Bapi) is a leading session and live guitarist in Bollywood. Flutist Rakesh Chaurasia is the nephew of flute maestro Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, and has toured with legendary tabla virtuoso Ustad Zakir Hussain. Sarod master and composer Rajeeb Chakraborty is a renowned musician, educator, composer and conductor. Sarangi player Pankaj Mishra has performed as a solo artist and accompanist throughout India, and toured abroad accompanying everyone from Pt. Kumar Bose to Pt. Andindya Chatterjee.
There are many traditional Indian instruments featured on this fusion album. The sarangi is a bowed, short-necked string instrument said to most resemble the sound of the human voice and is carved from a single block of red cedar wood, with a box-like shape that contains three hollow chambers: pet (stomach), chaati (chest) and magaj (brain). A sarangi will hum and cry and somehow sound like melodious meowing.
The tabla is a pair of twin hand drums of slightly different sizes and shapes, made of hollowed out wood, clay or metal and laced with hoops, thongs and wooden dowels on its sides used to tighten the tension of the membranes for tuning the drums. The smaller drum (daya) is used for creating treble and tonal sounds, the larger drum (bayan) is for producing the bass tones.
The word sarod translates as "beautiful sound" or "melody" in Persian. The sarod or sarode is a fretless stringed instrument, known for a deep, weighty, introspective sound, with sympathetic strings that can produce the continuous slides between notes known as meend (glissandi), which give it a resonant, reverberant quality.
I had the opportunity to ask Samir Bodhi a few questions, about his music and his journey as a musician. He is also gifted with many academic accomplishments, for example he was awarded the lifetime achievement award for outstanding contributions to science of design at an international conference in Dublin, Ireland. In the music world, he experienced his greatest achievement so far when he composed and recorded with Kumar Sanu, a living legend of Bollywood. After the recording was completed Kumar Sanu said that Samir Bodhi should be in Mumbai, and pursue full-time composing for Bollywood films. One of his ambitions after the COVID situation has resolved is perform on a 20 city music tour with his entire group and perform at prestigious venues worldwide.
I began by asking him to compare live performances to studio sessions as far as creative satisfaction.
SAMIR BODHI: Both can give satisfaction but they are different. When I am live, its instant gratification as the audience applauds the playing. There is a continuous feedback loop which can be gratifying. But in studio, I can try and experiment so much with plug-ins, new software etc. It also feels good to create something new by collaborating with musicians in the studio.
ROBIN JAMES: What was your most positive surprise in life?
SB: I would say that when I first started to compose and shared that with family and friends, they really liked it and encouraged me to continue. I was always a musician but that was a surprise to me that I could be a composer too.
RJ: Where were you born, where do you live now, and how might that have influenced your work?
SB: I was born and raised in Calcutta, India. It is perhaps the richest cultural city in India. Growing up I listened to mostly Indian film music, which today is popular as Bollywood music. But at the same time, I was an avid listener of rock, jazz and fusion bands of the west. In Calcutta, there is a strip called Park Street that was surrounded by some great clubs which had awesome jazz and pop bands. In college I had a band myself and we would perform “brick on the wall” by Pink Floyd at college fests. Then I immigrated to the USA in 1989. What this has done is that I have developed a keen sense of western harmonization, chord progressions and jazz while at the same time I have a solid understanding of Indian classical and popular music. My own music has always blended these two different genres. I try to compose Indian melody line but use western sounds for arrangements.
RJ: What were you listening to growing up?
SB: I listened to a lot of Hindi Film music by composers such as RD Burman, Salil Chowdhury and Madan Mohan. I was also listening to Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, Mark Kpnofler, Beatles, Roger Whitaker, Kenny Rogers, Deep Purple and others. My home state of Bengal in India has a very rich cultural heritage when it comes to art, music, and cinema. I was influenced by Bengali music composers and singers and had the opportunity to meet and work with some of them. There is one particular genre of music called Ghazals. These are Hindi/Urdu poetry that is composed as a song. I used to listen to Ghazals by Jagjit Singh. In fact he used a lot of bass and guitars in his ghazals. That also influenced me quite a bit. Later I was fortunate enough to perform with him.
RJ: What have you been listening to lately?
SB: I have been listening to White Sun II, Enigma and Enya a lot. I have also been listening to Denise Donatelli, H.E R. and Toni Braxton. I have also been enjoying some soulful adlib ghazals by a young singer called Sachin Sharma from India.
RJ: What is your task as a composer?
SB: As a composer, the most important thing in a song to me is the melody. The melody should be haunting, and catchy. It should be something that someone would like to hum. Once I have the melody line, then I focus on chords and arrangements. I also get influenced by good music. For example I may be watching a TV series on Netflix, which may use a background song. There is something in it, either the beat or a sound that I get attracted to. I begin to improvise on those elements and start to play with a tune that then becomes my own original and inspired by something that I may have heard.
RJ: How would you explain your creative process to a young musician who is curious about life's possibilities?
SB: My creative process starts with a passion to do something unique and different. I am always conscious of the fact that I have to compose thinking out of the box. Then you start to record the basic draft of the song. Trial and error is important. I also collaborate a lot with great musician friends of mine. So when I share the basic song with a gifted arranger, and then I listen to what he has arranged, it is a very rewarding feeling. Finally when the track is recorded or the song is done by adding a vocalist in the studio, the entire process comes full circle. It is a fantastic feeling to know that we have created something truly new and original and it is sounding good to us. For a young person, I would say be passionate about your creation, everything else will fall into place. Don’t give up.
RJ: How do you balance producing and teaching and performing?
SB: It’s not easy. Teaching, research and running my lab at the University takes away a lot of time. But I find solace in my music and the studio. So I spend quite evenings in my studio producing melodies that I can later use. I often use my smartphone when I get a musical idea and record that tune or melody on the phone and revisit that when I am in my studio.
RJ: What is music?
SB: Music to me stems from nature and manifests its sights and sounds into melody lines. In Indian mythology, we worship Goddess Saraswati as the God of music. It is divine in its many forms. My home studio where I compose is like a temple. Songs and lyrics reflect what is happening in our surroundings and hopefully can uplift people. Music gives me peace.
RJ: What is listening?
SB: When I listen to music, I am listening to everything, all the beats, notes, vocals and special sounds. I also listen to moments of silence. Listening is like learning to me, what other great maestros have done. You can learn a lot by careful listening. I also have a broad listening appetite and listen to many different genres, appreciating the many nuances of those creations.
RJ: Where do you dream of going?
SB: I have been fortunate enough to travel quite a bit for my academic research and talks. I have visited numerous places all over the world. But places that I still haven’t visited and would love to go would be Egypt and Japan.
RJ: What are the most beautiful places you have ever performed in?
SB: I have performed in several states in the USA, Canada and in many cities in India. Most beautiful would include San Diego, Santa Monica, San Francisco, New York, Orlando, Tampa, Calgary and others. I love to perform in Calcutta (my home city) and Mumbai.
RJ: What would you like to tell us about any of your current or future projects?
SB: I have a number of new projects in mind. One of them is to compose a jazz fusion song for my wife Madhumita. I am also beginning to explore ideas for another new age album.
RJ: Thank you for your kind attention and your time, as well as your beautiful and inspirational music! May the new year ahead continue to bring you many blessings.
Now I would like to explore the new album itself.
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