phenomeNEWS - This Month's Music Review

This Month's Music Review
by Greg Ozimek

Quiet Beauty Heartsongs for
Cello and Piano
James Todd

A full CD of the romantic voice of the cello, sometimes accompanying itself and usually accompanied by a sensitive, romantic piano is the latest creation of cellist James Todd.

Todd has translated his feelings from peak moments in his life for his soft-sounding cello to vibrate and enliven in us those moments and events the way only a cello can vibrate! The result is an all-too-brief hour of heartfelt music to stir your soul, open and center you in your heart.

Dreamy yet lucid, Quiet Beauty can set the mood for beautiful, spiritual-like quiet times with a love or alone. We are given the experience of the interplay of cello and piano like a dance, the Dance of Life: one instrument supporting the other, one coming up from the harmony to ride or float and become the melody for itself...and then for both; an interplay of sounds, an
interplay of emotions, heart resonating.

In the classical arena, Todd serves as principal cellist with the Arapahoe Philharmonic in Denver, Colorado, performs with many area music ensembles and productions and has appeared as guest solo artist with the Arapahoe Philharmonic, the Denver Symphony, the MSC Symphony Orchestra and the Aurora Symphony.

As a professional free-lance musician, he has performed in concert with many touring shows including such notable artists as: Stevie Wonder, Crosby/Nash, Yanni, John Tesh, Led Zeppelin, Yes, Brian Wilson, Lyle Lovett, Marvin Hamlisch, Wynton Marsalis,
Kenny Rogers, Linda Ronstadt, Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Mannheim Steamroller, Sarah Brightman, Smokey Robinson, K.D. Lang, the Three Tenors and Jose Feliciano.

Todd said, “I hope that my music might touch your soul and help express your heart’s song and the quiet beauty within.”

Heart Chakra Meditations
Layne Redmond

Layne Redmond rocks! Keeping within the theme of a two CD album that promotes the development of the grandest range of heart emotions maybe we can agree that Redmond, the lifelong student of yoga, is sublime!

And Layne’s Heart Chakra Meditations CD will rock your world.

I’ve heard, for, ummmm “decades,” that in a competition between one’s heart and one’s own intellect the sure winner, every time, in the end, will be the heart. The heart gets what it wants. A struggle with one’s heart, wrapping one’s emotions down and/or twisting them around and around will bind the heart, control the emotions, but only temporarily. One’s heart will surface. One’s heart survives.

Another thing I’ve heard others talk about for a long time was “Primordial Sound.” I wondered, “What’s a primordial sound?” Now I know. It’s easy once you know it. It is a sound we carry around with us and a memory we have had since before our birth.

The transcendental, humming pulse of physical being can be heard near the fourth chakra: the human body’s heart center. As this chakra is opened, balanced and energized, faith, devotion and harmony in our relationships unfold.

It is in the space of the heart and the heart chakra that drummer and author Layne Redmond offers Heart Chakra Meditations – two CDs specially recorded to purify the heart chakra, fine-tune our receptivity for love at the core of our entire being and center us exquisitely in the whole of everything so as to express one’s life’s song from there.

On CD One, Layne offers listeners a complete series of pranayama exercises, guided meditations and a unique shavasana (relaxation) practice to balance and tone the heart chakra.

On CD Two, she presents a masterful chanting practice that blends Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist traditions and is the perfect accompaniment to meditation, massage, yoga or trance work. Also included is a 20-minute recording of the human heartbeat – a powerful healing sound that opens our hearts and connects us to all of life.