Written by Kai Eckhardt
Amongst those of us who are privileged enough to access the conveniences of modern life there are four kinds of people:
1. Those who hide in the comforts of denial.
2. Those who wake up to the bigger picture and are terrified of it.
3. Those who overcome their terror and understand what can be done.
4. Those who reach mastery and are doing what can be done.
Where do you belong?
Two years ago I read a book called the Story of Luna written by Julia Butterfly Hill. It is the story of her one woman battle against a faceless corporation gone rampant in the Pacific Northwest. The corporation ordered the logging company to step up the pace and clear-cut the ancient forest. Ancient redwood forests were disappearing fast and soil erosion damged land and homes of the locals. In a quest to protect the old growth forest and surrounding eco-system from being devastated, Julia staged a tree-sit resistance by holding out on a tiny platform high up in a giant redwood called Luna. For two years she didnt come down. She made it through hypothermia,
frost bite, stormy winters and helicopter harrassments all the way to victory.
Her resistance supported by many dedicated activists sparked an international debate that eventually forced the seemingly invincible corporation to the negotiation table.
The corporation finally agreed to stay away from Luna and the surrounding forest.
Then Julia descended.
One year after reading the Story of Luna I found myself sitting next to Julia on a Southwest Flight from Oakland, California to Oregon. Both of us were invited to the first annual Pangaea benefit concert at the Crystal Ballroom in Portland. We came to support the vision of Deb Delman and Stephanie Tolk who had dreamed up a unique way of benefiting Portlands low income youth.
I was looking forward to meeting Julia in person and wondered what kind of character she would be. It turned out she was knowledgeable and dedicated, business savvy and practical. She lived with personal integrity all the way down to her consumer choices.
Night of the concert:
Before the show started, Julia was asked to give the opening presentation. During her performance she focused on breaking down the invisible divisions between people, their hearts and minds.
She began by addressing those she called the the unseen ones thanking them for their work in the background, for helping to make the event happen. She mentioned those in the ticket booth, the ones who cleaned the floor and facilities, brought in the catering, carried in the gear and so forth. Then she went on to thank the life forms that sustain us and provide us with our basic needs. After the extension of gratitude she called in the seven directions, empowering her community. Way to kick off a party!
Birth of a composition
Every composition starts with a seed
In this case the seed was Julias invocation at the Pangaea benefit. I managed to find an audio recording of the performance. Then I transcribed Julias text to a notebook, converted the text to spoken word and memorized it.
I set a goal for myself to produce a tune indepenently and to set the highest possible standards. How that tune would get an Indian twist shall remain a mystery until later on.
At first I had logistical problems to solve. My budget was $O! Second of all, many of my favorite musicians lived thousands of miles away from Oakland. How was I going to bring this all together?
After some soul searching I came upon a solution that worked for everybody involved.
All the artists on my project agreed to trade their time for mine.
By working on my project for free I granted them equal amount of my time on theirs.
Since software like Pro Tools became standard and the transfer of files on the Internet became possible, physical distance between collaborating artists was no longer an issue.
After being done with the lyrics, it was time to choose a tempo.
I wanted it to be slow and heavy with deep roots. It also had to sound dangerous, like the slow and massive problems associated with disappearing forests and global warming.
Slow notes needed contrast with fast notes projecting alarming urgency and a call to action, a kind of musical wake up call. A call to get involved.
Keeping that in mind, I was able to put together the basic tracks in my little studio in the West of Oakland. The basic tracks were: Bass, synth bass, piccolo bass, vocals, drum machine and keyboards.
Next, I was looking for an engineer who knew how to edit and mix. That is where Andre Zweers came to the rescue. He had amazing skills. A real artist of his craft and high in demand. Andre is also a composer of electronic music who needed live bass tracks. We made a trade agreement. Andre imported my basic ADAT tracks into his Pro Tools rig and mixed down a play along CD that could be transferred to any location.
I played bass on his upcoming release. Then we needed live drums. Sean Rickman was the man for that. The Rick and I go many years back and he would understand exactly what to play. Little did I know that he would outperform my expectations and raise the bar on the music. His drumming ended up shaping the composition quite a bit. The Rick is one of the most amazing musicians alive today and I am fortunate to know him in this life time.
We transferred the files via CD from Andres place in Petaluma to Washington DC where Sean the Rick Rickman lived. The Rick worked with Dick Rausch as an engineer who helped us convert the files. Now the project went back into incubation until the drums were tracked.
Andre and The Rick Little did I know that I would soon be in for an unexpected turn of events.
The phone in Oakland rang one day and Prasanna was on the other line. Prasanna is an accomplished south Indian classical musician who figured out a way to play carnatic music on a Fender Stratocaster. He studied Jazz at Berklee College of Music in Boston and holds an engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Chennai, India. Prasanna was headlining a big concert put on by the IIT in Chennai and wanted me to play. I said yes.
But before India I was scheduled to go to Florida and join Garaj Mahal at Jam Cruise.
I was learning complex music on the boat getting ready for India while the party was raging outside my cabin. The MS Celebration was on its way to the Bahamas.
Most of the personnel aboard the ship happened to be from Indonesia and the Asian tsunami had claimed almost 300 000 lives just ten days ago. We were constantly bugged by cops, especially in Jacksonville when drug sniffing dogs made their unexpected appearance bringing the good times to an early end for 70 + unsuspecting hippies. Nevertheless the music dominated and we did what we came to do, play music. Julias piece was on the back burner but always present in my mind.
(Oteil Burbridge on stage at Jamcruise 2005)Two days after jam cruise ended I found myself on a 24 hour journey to Madras. Jeff Coffin from the Flecktones and Derrico Watson from Victor Wootens band were my travel companions. I had just learned that Chennai had suffered from the Asian tsunami as well and 300 people died at the beach ten days ago.
The waves trashed all the boats and houses near the beach, making it impossible for local fishermen to continue their business. We played for an enthusiastic crowd of about two thousand people at the IIT where the likes of Bill Gates show up to recruit future computer wizards.
(Shalini, Prasanna, Kai, Jeff and Derrico at IIT in Chennai 2005) The people were friendly and vibrant, the food was fantastic and we enjoyed our stay at a local five star hotel.
Visiting the beach and speaking with local fisherman we could sense just how devastating that tsunami must have been. Not even my grandfather has ever seen the sea like this, says a local fisherman who was selling sea shells to foreigners like myself, wondering just how his family would survive over the next days, weeks, months. Crossing the city river unleashed the most intense smell of sewage.
Prasanna told me the regular monsoon rains had failed two years in a row.
I believed him after my five star hotel shower fawcett ran brown water into the bathtub. And then there was the traffic. Yellow three wheeler taxis (auto-rickshaws),
motor scooters and passenger busses dominated the streets of Chennai with its thirteen million inhabitants. In between, people on the sidewalks selling things, working, commuting, and hanging out. And not to be forgotten; the occasional holy cow. Two stroke engines and diesel busses leave a constant fog hanging over the city. The noise of car horns creates an industrial symphony in all twelve keys. A walk around the block leaves me exhausted from the heat, the smog and the overwhelming impressions of a new place. Despite the density and harsh realities of Chennai city life (with its 13 million inhabitants) the collective spirit of the people was remarkably positive and friendly. Prasanna took us on a tour of the town and we learned so much about the deep spirituality rooted in the ancient Hindu culture. I was deeply moved and will never forget this journey into the heart of an ancient culture. Thank you Prasanna!
(at the beach with the locals) (ancient Hindu Temple) (Jeff and Kai deep in the hood) On the last day I decide to go shopping. Inside the mall it is cool and air-conditioned and clothes, electronics and food can be found in abundance. But outside the madness goes on. On the way back to my hotel I get stuck in traffic on the backseat of the open three wheeler. Next to me a bus pulls up and stops at a red light, blowing diesel fumes into the open auto-rickshaw. Ten Minutes seem like forever. Back at the hotel I am sick. My face swollen, coughing up black stuff. I leave for California that same night on a red-eye flight and have the hardest time packing my suitcase. I made it to the plane downplaying my condition. On board I went to the bathroom. My eyes were secreting blackish slime and I looked terribly puffed up. Miraculously, thanks to good health, I managed to ride out the funk over the course of a week.
Back home again I came to my senses. I did my best to process all the impressions and to sum it all up into: What did I learn?
Besides keeping my head away from exhaust pipes I learned that everything people are generally afraid of has already happened to someone somewhere.
What we take for granted like a hot shower, a warm meal and clean air is not available to millions of people day in and day out. I also learned that people are a lot more resilient than I previously thought. My experience of hard core pollution ended after a week whereas the driver of my auto rickshaw is still in it feeding his family on a few bucks a day. It left me with the feeling: What problems do I think I have?
It was time to wrap up the composition and get the song mixed.
But the India experience couldnt be ignored and thus made a significant impact on the tunes new development.
The verses based on Julias text and my India experience began to merge in the subconscious mind. I thought to myself: Butterfly Hill is putting up militant resistance against the destruction of the earths natural wealth while people in other parts of the world are already paying the price as climate, air and water quality suffer.
By coincidence I met a brilliant young Kathak dancer named Kaveri Agashe the student of living Kathak master Shama Bhate in Pune. Kathak is Indias sacred temple dance.
Back in the studio with Andre, things got experimental. Kaveri laid down very cool tracks including vocals. New inspiration and a distinctly Indian flavor entered the composition. I also had mini disk recordings of Chennais street sounds which Andre turned into digital sound samples.
My vocal tracks where OK, mostly for the spoken word part. The song needed singers.
I contacted SoVoSo, the vocal ensemble extraordinaire from the SF Bay Area. Joey Blake from the ensemble was into trading time and he came up with a catchy background arrangement. I was still missing the female element and called my friends Gail Muldrow from Sly and the family stone and my Afro-Deutsch soul sister Daria Nile.
After the ladies were done laying down their vocals, the tune was ready for the final mix and mastering session. I still had no idea what name it should carry.
(Kaveri Agashe) (Gail Muldrow) ( Daria Nile) (Joey Blake)One day a friend of mine said out of the blue:
Nobody ever named a song after Gandhi. That can be changed was my response.
It is important for me to communicate that my song is not dedicated to the memory of Gandhis life story. Instead it is a dedication to the spirit he, Julia and others project into our world with its violent history.
To me Gandhi and Butterfly were coming from the same space of deep love and respect for life, showing a trust in humanitys ability to solve its own problems from the bottom up. In India the majority of people stepped behind Gandhis ideas and his rise brought an end to British rule in India. The people of India needed no guns, no threats, no rhetoric to bring down an oppressive regime. That is a prime example of stepping up the humanity.
Here are more examples of peaceful revolutions:
The people of Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall needed neither guns nor threats nor rhetoric to bring down the Wall. The people of Argentina (after the countries recent financial collapse) needed no violence and no coercion to get the country back on its feet.
And Julia Butterfly Hill didnt use violence to save an ancient forest. Courageous souls around the planet are bringing about fresh changes. Start your own revolution. It begins with you and the choices you make.
Kai Eckhardt-Karpeh de Camargo,
In the 1990s per capita income fell in 54 of the worlds poorest countries; already high poverty rates increased in 37 of the 67 reporting countries.
More than 1.2 billion people now struggle to survive on less than $1 a day. Some 2.8 billion, nearly half the worlds population survive on less than $2 per day.
At the other end of the scale the number of billionaires worldwide swelled from 274 in 1991 to 691 in 2005 with a combined net worth of $2.2 trillon
It is estimated that 73 per cent of the entire human population does not have access to the affluence of modern consumer society.
*(source: the great Turning by David C Korten)
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