ONE LOVE Devotional Chant: News

Wow, it's been a really incredible week for us. We played at Kripalu Yoga Center in Stockbridge, MA on Wednesday night, and we had about 80 or 90 people there in the big main chapel, with the big statue of Shiva dancing behind us the whole time. We love playing at Kripalu--we get to chant with wonderful people who come from all over the globe, and we get to stay a couple of nights and take great yoga and dance classes, eat their amazing food, and relax in the whirlpool and sauna. It sure beats playing in a bar!

Then, last night, we had our CD release celebration at Ahimsa Yoga Center in Ithaca. We had a great turnout, and the room was bursting with energy--lots of great chanting, dancing, happy children running around, and folks enjoying an amazing spread of food. Thanks to all who came out to sing, dance and celebrate with us!

We have the CD now, and it looks and sounds beautiful. Wow! We are delighted with it, and we think you will be, too. If you live anywhere near Ithaca, NY, we hope you'll come celebrate with us at the CD release party on January 8th. We'll have complimentary desserts and chai and other goodies, and of course, lots of juicy chanting!

We just found out that we will have the CD by Wednesday the 16th! And, we've just made it easier for you to order! Just go to our "Buy CD" page and click on the link, which will take you to CCNow, where you can order safely and securely with the credit card of your choice. It's not too late for Santa!

Well, it looks like the CD will be back from the plant JUST in time to fling it into Santa's Sleigh as he's pulling out for the big ride! So, you can have it in your stocking for Christmas. We don't have ordering set up on this site yet, but you can order it from Jody's website: www.jodykessler.com . Just click on the music page and you can order with your credit card via a secure processor!

Well, the good news is that our CD is at the plant now being pressed. Yay! The bad news is that we're not sure whether it will be shipped backed to us in time to get it out for the holidays. So we're kind of hanging out in limbo here, waiting for news from the plant as to when they'll have it ready to ship. Even if it will be ready before Christmas, it will be just barely under the wire--we'll have to fling it into Santa's sleigh just as he's heading out for his big ride. But, our official release date will be January 8th, when we'll have our big CD release bash in Ithaca, NY. More on that later!

On Friday night we played at Sage Chapel, an incredible space at Cornell University. We were literally surrounded by angels with gold, glittery wings(those of you who have been in that space will know what I mean). Henrike and Caleb joined us for this event, and there were 70 or 80 people that came to chant with us. On Saturday, Joe, Doug and Jody drove down to Woodstock, NY, to play at the Namaste Yoga Center, and Kristin came up from NYC to join us. It was a sweet reunion!

On another note, our CD master is done, and we are finishing up the artwork and liner notes. It looks like our release date will be in early January. We'll keep you posted!

We had a great gig at Corning Community College last Thursday. We were joined by percussionist extraordinaire Caleb Griffin. We are lucky to have Caleb working with us at this time, and we're excited about having him join us for the next few gigs. His skillful percussion and general good vibes really help elevate the energy of the chanting. We've also been blessed to be working with Henrike Burton, who will join us for some upcoming events. Henrike is a gifted vocalist whose beautiful harmonies and loving spirit adds so much to the ONE LOVE experience. So for the next few gigs, we will be at least a fivesome, and others may be sitting in with us as well.

We had a really amazing "community kirtan" evening at Ahimsa Yoga Center this past Friday evening. Henrike Burton sat in with vocal responses and harmonies, and that was sweet! Lots of folks brought instruments and joined in, mostly with various types of percussion, and it really rocked! We also had a couple of people step in to lead some of their own chants, and we backed them up. Our intention is to have these collaborative chanting evenings keep growing so that it's a happening thing on a monthly basis. our next one is Friday October 2nd, so please save the date!

Our dear friend and partner in song Kristin has moved to NYC to pursue a career in music therapy. Although we think chanting is the best therapy around, we support her choice and send her off with our blessings. We will still be doing some gigs with her downstate, and at Kripalu in January, but we are looking for someone to join our group for regional gigs in Central and upstate NY. So, although Kristin is still very much a part of our band, we are going to have some rotating personnel, depending on the location of the event. Kristin's shoes will be hard to fill, but we are putting out the intention to connect with someone out there who is talented, available, fun, and can sing and play percussion. Other instruments would be great, too. We look forward to seeing who comes our way!

We just had a fabulous weekend of recording sessions, working steadily (and joyfully!) from Friday night through Sunday. We are thrilled with the raw material, and we are anxiously awaiting the mixes, which our recording wizard Charlie Shew will be doing over the next week or so. We had a great time on Saturday with the ONE LOVE chorus, a group of men and women with gorgeous voices and beautiful spirits who spent the day with us singing. By the end of the weekend we had recorded 13 chants plus one of Joe's beautiful Native American flute improvs. Now, with the magic of editing, we will hopefully make it all fit onto a 70 minute CD.

We will keep you posted as to the progress of this project!

You may notice that we don't have any gigs booked for July. That's because we'll be busy recording our debut CD, which will be a live-in-the-studio production, and we've got a great chorus lined up for the call-and-response chants. Our big recording weekend will be July 24-26th, with producer/engineer Charlie Shew at the helm. Charlie is also an awesome musician, and an all around great guy. We are thrilled to have him working on the project. We'll keep you abreast of the progress as things move along.

Hi Friends,
We had a blast leading the Wed. night kirtan at Kripalu Yoga Center in Lenox, MA this week. Kripalu is THE happening place for kirtan on the East Coast, with chanting events every week in addition to a variety of workshops led by the top kirtan wallahs in the West. So, we were honored to have been invited to play there. We had a great turnout (about 80 people), with participants dancing and grooving on the music. And then we were blessed to enjoy a day of retreat the following day, taking advantage of the fabulous food, the sauna, jacuzzi, yoga and dance classes, and the general good vibes of the place. More gigs like that would be a good thing!

We had another great night at the Ahimsa Yoga Center last night--high energy, wonderful people joining their voices and hearts together with us. Some of the usual local folks were there, as well as some visitors from Binghamton (who said the chanting was the perfect healing activity after the horrible shootings that occured there earlier that day), and a traveler from Hawaii.

We are also delighted to announce that we'll be in the Ithaca Festival this year, on Saturday May 30th on the Ithaca Commons. This is a great opportunity to expose a more "mainstream" audience to kirtan and other devotional chanting practices. We'll see if we get some converts!

We are continuing to upload new music from our live events, so please check back often to hear new stuff.
In addition, we are preparing to do a live CD this summer, so you can take us home with you. We''ll keep you posted
as that project evolves.

Aloha! Jody and Doug here, writing while vacationing on Maui. We had a chance to attend a kirtan last night with some fabulous musicians and singers. Great improvisational drumming, flute, sax, flamenco guitar, along with baritone ukele and harmonium. The gathering took place in a private home, and there were about thirty people there. We were invited to lead a few chants, and the place was rockin'. We've been impressed with how there seems to be such a strong sense of community amongst kirtan/bhakti folks. In fact, this wonderful event happens EVERY WEEK in this woman's home, along with a delicious potluck meal. We are feeling inspired to bring this kind of community spirit to our hometown of Ithaca, NY, and we want to encourage kirtan and other devotional chanting to be a community co-creation, building deeper connections between people as we share the experience of chanting the Name.

We had a fabulous evening of chanting last night at Ahimsa Yoga Center in Ithaca, NY. It feels like there's a growing interest in devotional chanting here in Central New York, and we are so delighted to be a part of that rising wave. We had good turnout last night and the room was full of juicy, joyful energy. We are looking forward to listening to the recording and uploading some new music to this site soon. Many thanks to all who came out to help make it happen!

Hello, Dear Ones! We are delighted that you are visiting our brand-spankin' new website. We are four musicians from Ithaca, New York who love to pray through music, using our instruments and our voices in joyful repetition of the Name. What "Name", you might ask? We chant the many names of Spirit from many different traditions, dipping into that ocean of love that is the Divine Presence. The interesting paradox is that through chanting the Names, we deepen into the experience of the Nameless. You are invited to join us in that journey.

Over the next few weeks we'll be uploading some music from our live shows, and later this year we will have a CD for sale. We'll keep you posted. Until then, we hope you'll visit us often here at this site.

Many Blessings,
Jody, Joe, Kristin and Doug