Yogi McCaw

 

Here's some of the things I have been doing recently:

 

In Progress: Songbird, The Yoginis first CD

 

The Songbird CD will feature Yogi's compositions. Grounded in jazz, the songs incorporate Latin, Brazilian, and Indian rhythms and tonalities for a sound that is at once danceable and interesting to listen to.

The Yoginis feature some of Seattle's top world musicians including multilingual vocalist Samia Panni; veteran Latin percussionist Johnny Conga; Brazilian percussionist Jeff Busch; veteran American Drummer Ed Mays; Marc Miller, bassist of several styles; sax man Mike Deasy;rising jazz trumpet star Thomas Marriott; and world music sax and flute veteran Bob Antolin.

The Yoginis CD will be on Limitless Sky Records, and engineered by Michel Tyabji, who has extensive experience recording in Africa, India, and the USA.

This is an Arabic-influenced world music group. We do a lot of shows with bellydancers, and we are doing events with new age spiritual churches and groups such as the Swedeborgian Church and the Ananda EastWest bookstore in Seattle. We do guided music meditations and workshops as well as concerts.

Chandana is visiting from India, where she works as a singer in the Indian movie industry (called "Bollywood") in Bombay. She has been the singer for many hit songs from famous movies there. She is here on a performer's visa to pursue an East-West fusion project, which will include a CD and touring. We performed a benefit for the victims of the Tsunami of December 2004 in the Indian Ocean. Hundreds of people came out and we donated all the proceeds to a relief organization.

Ahmed has been in the USA for 20 years, and has performed on the East and West coasts both with his own band, the African Knights, and with many other African and Reggae artists.

From Guinea, in West Africa, Naby has performed all over the world, trained from childhood as a "griot", which is a person charged with carrying his tribal culture and music. He was awarded the Juno Award in Canada (the equivalent of a US Grammy) for "Best World Music Album" twice, in 1995, and again in 2005 for his performance on the best-selling African Guitar Summit album. He tours the USA and Canada regularly with his own band, and with other African groups, nost notably the group of Alpha Yaya Diallo.