Ease & Flow by J.J. Gregg

'Hovering Mid-Air' is a pleasing bookend to the album that harkens back to the first track, 'Trading Places with Dragonflies.' Overall, the album serenades summer in its abundance of flora, fauna, and sunwashed glory.

- Tracy Schoenle, former editor of Cricket Magazine

About a year before I started working on this new album, I had a conversation with my high school friend Pearl Phaovisaid. I asked her what her day-to-day guiding philosophy is and she replied, "My guiding philosophy now revolves around ease and flow." I started thinking about what Ease & Flow meant...trying to move with purpose through and around daily distractions towards long-term meaning and creation. Practically speaking, I took this to mean enjoying planning and preparing to make this mini-epic album while staying calm and having fun with everyone along the way. Ease & Flow, here we go!

At the end of January, 2023, I was in the midst of recording my collaboration with David Van Auken, Lunar Prairie. I called up my sitar guru in India, Ustad Usman Khan, and asked him if he'd had a chance to listen to my last couple albums. To my pleasant surprise he had, and he had really enjoyed them! He told me, "Definitely you should keep recording." With that encouragement, I decided to figure out how to make a new album with Pavan Kanekal without delay!

I called up my good friend Sam Koentopp (Chicago-based drummer of Brighton MA fame) and asked if he would produce this new album. For years we exclusively talked about garlic and gardening, but over the preceding year we had many conversations about music, recording, and the biznis thereof. For my 2022 album 're-cycling,' (also with Pavan on tabla) Sam connected me with my mastering engineer, Mark Yoshizumi, the final stop in the recording process before the music reaches your ears in your car or headphones.

With his experience in the Jazz and Pop worlds, I thought Sam would make a great partner in ironing out what pieces to record for this new album. I wanted to make the album concise yet expansive, something you can relax to or work out to, something you'd feel satisfied with after listening to the whole thing yet not hesitate to put on repeat.

I recorded lots of demos at various speeds of many pieces I've been working on and refining over the last several years. Sam helped me find good target speeds for things, and encouraged me to keep working on my instantaneous story-telling skills in my improvisations.

I've been working steadily over the last three years to improve my skills at recording and mixing and I have many people to thank along that journey. I've been learning how to hear instruments better, position mics better, use the right mics for the right tone, learn how to make a better, more interesting mix with what I've recorded as well as do lots of similar work for fantastic live recordings. 

In the middle of all this recording practice, my friend Danny Koentopp suggested I try recording in a studio. So the germ of that idea started around the time that Pearl had me thinking about 'Ease & Flow.' After talking with Sam and another friend Cory Bengtsen - both musicians familiar working in the Chicago scene - as well as a hip-hop producer with a soft spot for sitar; they all suggested that I should record at Electrical Audio in Chicago. The studio, designed by and built for Steve Albini (of Nirvana recording fame), has a reputation of capturing what your music really sounds like - especially when it comes to acoustic instruments. They also have a professional reputation of getting down to business and capturing the sound well in minimal time.

Electrical Audio had a couple days available in May of 2023, during a planned trip I had to visit family in Chicago. Pavan had time in his schedule to practice, rehearse, and record as well. And my parents were happy to host my family and Pavan in Chicago for a week!

Usually when I perform South Asian Classical music, I follow the traditional format - a solo sitar piece (Alaap) followed by an expansive theme with tabla (vilambit laya) and then a more concentrated quick piece (drut laya) sometimes followed by a big ending. With one of the ragas on the album, Madhmad Sarang, we followed this general path in the recording, although I've changed the presentation order on the album and substituted a subtle ending. With the other raga, Bageshree, my alaap got cut short due to technical difficulties on the first day of recording. We listened and edited the other two Bageshree pieces ('drawn into clouds' and 'hovering mid-air') the same day we recorded them. I reviewed them a few times as well and decided to re-record the alaap at the beginning of our second recording day. By remembering what I 'said' in the other two pieces, I was able to complete an expansive picture of Bageshree by filling in the "unsaid" ideas from the previous recording session. This kept these recordings fresh and unique compared to other concerts and improvisations that came before. Sam’s guidance about where to dig in and when to move on gave clarity and purpose to the recording experience.

Ease & Flow is a celebration of making meaning with music and within community. I hope you enjoy the new album!   - JJ Gregg, July 2024

A dynamic yet meditative sitar player, J.J. Gregg performs improvised and pre-composed music. With over a decade of hands-on training in India, J.J. immerses western experimental and jazz music into the traditional world of the sitar. J.J. Gregg has performed on the sitar in India, Japan, Thailand, and throughout the U.S. He also teaches sitar & voice online & throughout the Willamette Valley.

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