About Pray For Brain

Last Updated on Monday, 30 April 2012 22:05 Wednesday, 04 January 2012 15:00

What happens when two Buddhists and a Muslim meet to make music?

Arabilly.

Country and Eastern.

Indofunk. Sufisurf.

Jazz. World. Jam. 

Music to help you Pray For Brain.

This is not your auntie's world music band, nor your uncle's country twang, nor your grandad's jazz vinyl:  think 70s era Miles Davis, Chet Atkins and late Coltrane playing with the White Stripes and Isaac Hayes on a Calcutta rooftop with a bird's eye view to Morocco.

Johnny Cash and Bengali icon Rabrindranath Tagore may sit in, too.

As Sama Duo, Mustafa Stefan Dill (guitars, oud) and Jefferson Voorhees (drums) brought a telepathic level of interplay to their groove-oriented energetic improvisations, delivered with a gutsy south Asian and Middle Eastern twist.

One fan wrote, "I love Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Indian classical music and Zeppelin and improv jazz, and your music was hitting all of those buttons in my brain at once."

With the addition of upright bassist Christine Nelson and retooled as Pray For Brain, the new trio expands the range of groove, nuance and improvising conversations. The music is simultaneously lighter but deeper, easier to hear and harder to shake off.

Pray For Brain binds their diverse musical influences into a unified, coherent soundscape: skillful writing frames artful, telepathic dialogues that draw on a deep core of both cutting-edge and ancient improvising methods from India, Africa and the Middle East. The trio offers their voice with an energetic finesse wrapped in a rhythmically-driven, wide-ranging rock/funk/country/jazz ethos.

Pray For Brain is planning a CD release for 2012.

See it:  live videos, 4/13/2012  pics, 4/13/2012

Hear it: Reheasal clips, 2011

Who is Pray For Brain?

Mustafa Stefan Dill has a bio here .

Jefferson Voorhees (drums) a life-long drummer whose career has included touring and playing across North America, Europe and South Asia in hundreds of bands you've likely never heard of. Some you might have, such as the Tom Guralnick Trio, Out of Context and others.

After long residences in New York and San Francisco, he now resides in New Mexico and is one of the region's most versatile and sought after percussionists.

He and Mustafa have been playing together in one band or another for nearly two decades.

Christine Nelson (bass) recently returned to her native Albuquerque after time in the Idaho and Washington state music scenes.

After years on classical and gypsy jazz guitar, Christine picked up bass in 2007 and has played for Northwest - based Afro-pop/reggae band United Roots and various groups in Albuquerque.