Naamleela Free Jones-piano and keyboards, vocals, tanpura, composition, production
Influences
Adi Da Samraj, Ali Akbar Khan, Ray Lynch, John Mackay, Damian Taylor, J.S. Bach, Debussy, Chopin, Michael Sheppard, Leon Fleisher, Katya Grineva, Jonathan Condit, Susan Pottish, Louie Rozier, John Gregory, Norah Jones, Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos, Loreena McKennitt, Bjork, Nitin Sawhney, Jai Uttal, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Thievery Corporation, Felix Woldenberg, the Dagar Brothers, John Wubbenhorst, Paul Horn, Facing East...
Naamleela has lived most of her life on a sacred island in Fiji. She grew up in a traditional ashram setting of strict spiritual schooling, discipline, and meditation, never hearing popular music, or watching television. Since the age of five, she was trained as a sacred musician, concentrating in depth in both Western and Indian classical traditions. Her principal instruments were the piano and voice. Her training and disposition was always to create music that drew people out of themselves into communion with a greater divine reality, rather than to perform music to draw attention to herself. In this unique set apart situation, her own ideas of musical form and sound developed, without the influence of the modern world.
As a teenager, she began to travel and absorb other influences, learning everything from listening to the Beatles to using a telephone for the first time. While travelling California, Hawaii, New York, and Europe, she continued to receive training from numerous sources and teachers, most notably from Indian Master Ali Akbar Khan and his College of Music.
She listened to more and more modern albums with a keen ear, finding what she was drawn to in textures, lyrics, and styles. Urged on by the need to grow out of her classical training, to not only repeat the music she was taught, but find her own expression, she began to hear and compose her own music. This process came to fruit in her first entirely original album in 2005, "Eyes in Other Worlds", made in collaboration with Grammy-nominated producer Damian Taylor (Bjork/ Frou Frou/ The Prodigy).
At the age of 10, she had set up her first beginner's music studio. Operating Performer and an old 8 track tape reel recorder, she had first been inspired to record and produce her own music under the tutelage of a friend, platinum-selling composer Ray Lynch (Deep Breakfast, Sky of Mind). Since then she has been self-producing most of her own CD's, and is now a certified music producer through the Berklee College of Music Online. Her albums to date cover a wide range of styles and talent, from classical piano, to jazz, to traditional chant, while all reflecting the focus and setting of her life which has always been that of feeling contemplation and communion with the Divine.
Hers To Me: Devotional and Meditative Renditions of Western Piano Classics - Solo Piano by Naamleela Free Jones 1997
Bach In Time: Improvisations on the Preludes of J.S. Bach - Naamleela Free Jones and the John Mackay Trio 2000
Ruchira Avatara Gita: The Way of the Divine Heart Master - Devotional Chanting by Naamleela Free Jones 2001
Ishta Da: Original Devotional Chants - by Naamleela Free Jones and Tamarind Free Jones 2004
Eyes In Other Worlds - Songs of Poetry and Devotion by Naamleela Free Jones, produced by Damian Taylor 2005
Da Naama Mantra: The Eighty Variant Forms of the Ruchira Avatara Naama Mantra - Chanting by Naamleela Free Jones and Felix Woldenberg 2006
Coming soon!...Hers To Me 2: More Devotional and Meditative Renditions of Western Piano Classics - Solo Piano by Naamleela Free Jones 2007
After you've finished here, you may like to hear this poem sung on myspace...
Poem 162 of 230, WalkaboutsVerse (please see my blog): TEES TO TYNE: FIRST IMPRESSIONS - SUMMER 2001
Where traditions are not so rare; Sea, country and works scent the air; A multitude of monuments, Planted tubs and patterned pavements.
The longish pedestrian malls; The remnants of defensive walls; Historic buildings are a gauge Of the respect for heritage.
Wheat, rape and pines in the fields; Estuaries guarded by shields; Long sandy beaches and wide scenes; Romantic-ruin go-betweens.
Rivers in parts licked by trees, Or fringed by boat clubs, wharfs, gantries, And crossed by practical delights - Varied spans, forming pleasing sights.
Fine churches headed at Durham; Football kits ad infinitum; Kept castles - one for study; Masonry behind masonry.
And, with moulding-works out that way, It’s somewhere for a longer stay..?
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After you've finished here, you may like to hear this poem sung on myspace...
Poem 2 of 230, WalkaboutsVerse (please see my blog): WALKABOUT WITH MY PEN
Once drove an old sedan, up north, From a place in Sydney to Cairns; Then to Kuranda I went forth, By train, to look without set plans.
I browsed through the trendy market, With fresh fruits of tropical kind; Walked to the creek through lush thicket - Nature’s hand giving peace of mind.
I dined in a scenic cafe; Then, outside, as I wrote for yen, Some passing Kooris called-out: “Hey, You go walkabout with your pen.”
Request or question, I don’t know - Assured voices, elderly men. That’s now several years ago, And I’ve seen the world - with my pen.
Hey Naamleela Free Jones, hope you're having a great day! Say, do you believe in God? If so, do you think it comes with a tangible science we can hope to understand one day, or should it remain a mystical concept?
thanks for friendship, your voice and your music is really comming straight from your heart. You are lucky to live on this beautifull island. Good luck for you and your music.
Where traditions are not so rare; Sea, country and works scent the air; A multitude of monuments, Planted tubs and patterned pavements.
The longish pedestrian malls; The remnants of defensive walls; "Broken-roofed buildings" are a gauge Of the respect for heritage.
Wheat, rape and pines in the fields; Estuaries guarded by shields; Long sandy beaches and wide scenes; Romantic-ruin go-betweens.
Rivers in parts licked by trees, Or fringed by boat clubs, wharfs, gantries, And crossed by practical delights - Varied spans, forming pleasing sights.
Fine churches headed at Durham; Football kits ad infinitum; Kept castles - one for study; Masonry behind masonry.
And, with moulding-works out that way, It’s somewhere for a longer stay..?
I was barked at by numerous dogs who are earning their food guarding ignorance and superstition for the benefit of those who profit from it. Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the same source. They are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who—in their grudge against the traditional "opium of the people"—cannot bear the music of the spheres. The Wonder of nature does not become smaller because one cannot measure it by the standards of human moral and human aims.
