Nada Brahma: The World Is Sound : Music and the Landscape of Consciousness (English and German Edition)
Berendt, Joachim-Ernst; Bredigkeit, Helmut
- Publisher: Inner Traditions
- Date published: 1987
- ISBN: 9780892811687
Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 1987. hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 6x1x9. Minor shelf wear, binding tight, pages clean and unmarked. Scientists have only recently learned that particles of an oxygen atom vibrate in a major key, that blades of grass "sing," and that sexuality is a musical phenomenon. In an age when entire systems of apparently solid knowledge have collapsed, the tonal character of the world is one of the few things we can be certain of: The world is sound, rhythm, and vibration. This unique work, by Europe's foremost jazz expert and jazz producer, is at once intensely personal and wholly universal. It celebrates the ancient knowledge that the world is sound—the eternal song of unity—and shows how the "new sciences" all con-firm this profound truth. Joachim-Ernst Berendt embarked on a path that took him throughout America, Europe and Asia, Africa and Latin America, exploring diverse tradi-tions and revealing the universal impor-tance of sound in shaping cultural and spiritual life. Nada Brahma is alive with his experiences—living in Bali, studying at a Zen monastery in Kyoto, and encountering budding jazz stars in Indonesia and Japan, in Europe and the United States—his friendships with composers and performers the world over, his knowledge of new physics and Tantra, cybernetics, Sufism, and the works of Hermann Hesse. Berendt's journey is a testimonial to the work of many of the great figures of our age: musicologist Hans Kayser, Swiss philosopher Jean Gebser, French cosmologist Jean E. Charon, social philosopher Theodor Adorno, Sufi mas-ter Hazrat lnayat Khan, the great Zen masters, and musicians John Coltrane, Don Cherry, Ali Akhbar Khan, Ravi Shankar, Peter Michael Hamel, and numerous others. Appended to many chapters are pertinent discographies that direct the reader to hear the sounds of the uni-verse and to develop the ear as an organ of spiritual perception: from Gregorian chants and Tibetan prayers to Johann Sebastian Bach and classical Indian music; from Paul Horn and Steve Reich to the sounds of pulsars, the planets, and whales. Above all, Nada Brahma guides us through the unexplored regions of the unconscious to a vision of harmony as the ultimate goal of evolution. Joachim-Ernst Berendt was born in Berlin in 1922. He helped found the Sudwestfunk, one of West Germany's most popular radio stations. Producer of numerous concerts, radio programs, and records, Berendt has directed many international ja77 festivals and received various awards, including the Cultural Award of Poland. He is the author of more than twenty books, among them the highly acclaimed and widely translated reference work The Jazz Book.
birkittsbooks-28.00-f7f06881bfe8f16ceab21351a4f20f53