Bina Shah September 25, 2002

Tags: Faith

href="/tag/music">music collaboration from musicians/filmmakers Jamie Catto and Duncan Bridgeman, is like taking a flight across the world, picking up the best international musicians as passengers on this journey in rhythm and sound.

Dreamed up by Britishers Catto and Bridgeman, the duo travelled the world literally in this manner to find musicians to participate in the project. Participants include Senegal’s Baaba Maal, India’s own Asha Bhosle, Michael Stipe, Neneh Cherry, Kayelitsha and the Mahotella Queens from South Africa, and Whiri Mako Black from New Zealand. All artists were recorded in or near their homes on laptop computers, and then Catto and Bridgeman took their recordings to England to do the music, programming, and final production on Apple Macs back home.

The results are seamless, sophisticated, and infinitely melodic. From the first strains of the first song, "Dunya Salaam", a mesmerizing tribute by Senegal’s Baaba Maal to God and the Prophet Muhammed, you realize you are listening not just to music, but to a pulse, a pounding heartbeat that hypnotizes and charms all along the way.

The songs blend into one another, mixing genres of singing, encompassing different languages, and traditional instruments and rhythms with electronica and techno beats. A special treasure is to hear Asha Bhosle singing with Michael Stipe on "The Way You Dream", a delicate blend of trance and tabla and tracery. Robbie Williams and Maxi Jazz are no less impressive on their hip-hop/socio-political pop rap "My Culture".

In "Passion", a poem read by smooth-voiced Michael Franti is electrified by the vocals and percussion of the Baligashma Xylophone Group from Uganda and South Africa’s Kayelitsha, singing and chanting "like it was the last song they would ever sing".

Interspersed with the songs are quotes from artists, authors, philosophers, and free thinkers from over twenty destinations around the world, These come from a DVD that is part of the 1 Giant Leap project; the audio CD is only one half of the mix.

The DVD itself contains extended versions of the music on the audio CD, as well as interviews with the musicians and speakers like Anita Roddick, Dennis Hopper, Kurt Vonnegut, Ram Dass, and George Nuku. The DVD is divided into chapters entitled "Blasphemy", "Happy", "Money", and "Time", to give focus to the discussions and debates within.

Even if you aren’t interested in the multimedia side of the project, listening to 1 Giant Leap is an ear-opening experience, one that will restore your faith in the concept of globalization as envisioned not by politicians and moneymakers, but by artists, philosophers, and the creative minds that populate (and probably should rule) our world.