Black Bliss Krishnananda brings together an extraordinary intergenerational group—Georgia Anne Muldrow, Laraaji, Surya Botofasina, Isaiah Collier, Brandon Ross, Tcheser Holmes and Melvin Gibbs—to celebrate the profound engagement of Black Americans with the ecstatic spiritual traditions of South Asia. 

Bassist, producer and Brooklyn native Melvin Gibbs brings this group together in the midst of the violence and turmoil of our present political moment to "make music that creates space for people to reflect."

"This [impulse] was there in the origins of free jazz, [in the Coltranes' explorations of the] inner self/cosmos unity point" at another turbulent time in American history, he says. "Unity and bliss are the themes—and Krishna means black.” (Ananda is bliss.) He further writes: 

"Foundational in Black American spirituality is the idea of communion with God in the form of the Holy Ghost as blissful embodiment. So too is the idea that to be one with God is to be liberated. These concepts find resonance in South Asian traditions of the nature of ultimate reality—of SatChitAnanada as the inherently Blissful Self.

A shared goal of divine blissful liberation provides the basis for a tradition of Black American exploration of South Asian spirituality and thought. 

In 1981, Swami Muktananda visited the Church of the Master in Harlem, solidifying the bond between that congregation and his ashram. On the West Coast, this commonality was embodied from the mid 1970's onwards by Swamini Turiyasangitanada, known affectionately to her congregation as Swamini, and well known to the music world by her birth name: Alice Coltrane. The music she created for satsang (worship) at her Sai Anantam Ashram melded the ecstatic music created by African Americans with South Asian devotional bhajan. At that same time, musical seekers were traveling to the Ananda Ashram in the Catskill Mountains of New York State to explore and create commonalities of their own."

Black Bliss Krishnananda is a contemporary manifestation of this impetus. The group contains two members of the Sai Anantam Ashram family: singer/producer Georgia Anne Muldrow, who joined the community as a child through her mother and aunt and was given the name Jyoti by Alice Coltrane; and keyboardist and percussionist Surya Botofasina, who grew up inside the music and became the ashram's musical director. They are joined by Ananda Ashram veteran, laugh-master, and ambient music icon Laraaji Nadabrahmananda; spiritual jazz saxophonist Isaiah Collier; Harriet Tubman/Henry Threadgill/Cassandra Wilson guitar wizard Brandon Ross; Irreversible Entanglements drummer Tcheser Holmes; and the project's initiator, bassist Melvin Gibbs.

On the significance of continuing this spiritual and musical lineage, Surya Botofasina has said: "I think it can make the world a better place. I think it can make people see the best part of themselves and offer the best part of themselves to others, not just the people they know but to complete strangers, to open our hearts to the generosity of our own limitless possibilities that our kindness can bring. To find a strength and humility. That's why I feel the bhajans are so important to me."

Evoking and invoking the bliss within is a process. Sometimes you eat ice cream, sometimes you clean your apartment. The group will manifest a musical version of that process in real time, joining the spontaneous spirit of Mingus' Jazz Workshop to the concept of Swamini's full spiritual name—the non-dual blissful song. 

Turiya Sangitananda

Photo credits from top, left to right: Erik Carter; Laraaji; Ariella Villefranche; Grace Oh; Christian Stewart; Tcheser Holmes; Enid Farber.

FourOneOne's programs are made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.