''Blissful'' is the second album by drummer

Hamid Drake Hamid Drake (born August 3, 1955) is an American jazz drummer and percussionist. By the close of the 1990s, Hamid Drake was widely regarded as one of the best percussionists in jazz and improvised music. Incorporating Afro-Cuban, Indian, and Af ...

and his group Bindu. It was recorded on July 12 and 13, 2007, at Soma Electronic Music Studios in Chicago, Illinois, and was issued on CD in 2008 by

Rogueart RogueArt (also written Rogueart and Rogue Art) is a French independent record label based in Paris. It was founded by record producer Michel Dorbon in 2005 and specialises in jazz and improvised music. History RogueArt was founded by record pr ...

. On the album, Drake is joined by vocalist

Dee Alexander Deleatrice "Dee" Alexander is an American jazz singer. She is a member of the AACM and appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival in 2013. Alexander is the host of ''Sunday Jazz with Dee Alexander'', a radio show on WDCB and the WFMT Radio Network. ...

, guitarists Joe Morris and Jeff Parker, and double bassists Josh Abrams and William Parker. Lyrics were written by the 18th-century poet

Ramprasad Sen ( 1723/1718 – c. 1775) was a Hindu Shakta poet and saint of 18th-century Bengal. His '' bhakti'' poems, known as Ramprasadi, are still popular in Bengal—they are usually addressed to the Hindu goddess Kali and written in Bengali ...

, and were excerpted from ''Mother of the Universe: Visions of the Goddess and Tantric Hymns of Enlightenment'' by

Lex Hixon Lex Hixon (born Alexander Paul Hixon Junior, also known as Nur al-Anwar al-Jerrahi in the Sufi community; 1941–1995) was an American Sufi author, poet, and spiritual teacher. He practiced and held membership in several religious traditions. He ...

Reception

In a review for ''

All About Jazz ''All About Jazz'' is a website established by Michael Ricci in 1995. A volunteer staff publishes news, album reviews, articles, videos, and listings of concerts and other events having to do with jazz. Ricci maintains a related site, ''Jazz Near ...

'', Lyn Horton wrote: "In every song, long or short, an intricately diverse instrumentation conveys a sacred message of Kali, the Hindu Mother goddess... Drake's miraculous infallibility as percussionist and drummer can never dissolve; he blazes his path into the bandleader position with no less acuity." Ed Hazell of ''Point of Departure'' stated: "The music is of a piece with the spiritual vision... This album is like one of Ellington's '' Sacred Concerts'', a very personal work that moves from a particular religious basis to a universal message. You don't have to be a believer to get it." ''The Free Jazz Collectives Stef Gijssels noted that the album finds the players "completely merging jazz with world music," and described the seven tracks as "full of energy, rhythmic complexities, while still being unbelievably pure and authentic." However, he called the lyrics "awful" due to the fact that "Ramprasad's poetry is not only not very poetic, it's also not very lyrical, with lots of abstract words and unequal rhythm."

Track listing

# "My Blissful Mother" (Hamid Drake) – 16:10 # "Playful Dance at Soma" (Hamid Drake, Joe Morris, Jeff Parker, William Parker, Josh Abrams) – 12:20 # "Visions of Ma" (Dee Alexander, Hamid Drake) – 2:33 # "Supreme Lady Victorious in Battle" (Hamid Drake) – 11:45 # "Only Longing of My Soul" (Hamid Drake) – 6:52 # "There is Nothing Left But You" (Dee Alexander, William Parker, Hamid Drake) – 14:07 # "The Beautiful Names" (Hamid Drake) – 4:36

Personnel

– drums, frame drum, tabla, bata, vocals *

– vocals * Joe Morris – guitar, banjo * Jeff Parker – guitar * Josh Abrams – double bass, guimbri * William Parker – double bass, guimbri, shenai, doson ngoni

References

{{authority control 2008 albums Hamid Drake albums RogueArt albums