Gaea Star Crystal Radio Hour #174

07-23-15   Gaea Star Crystal Radio Hour #174 is a spacious, stripped-down affair featuring Mariam Massaro on vocals, native flute, guitar and ukelele, Bob Sherwood on piano and percussion and Craig Harris on congas.  We begin with the breezy and very cool “Deep Forest Blues”, a whimsical ode to the Summer Solstice and the birds of the deep forest.  “Mamacayo” follows and is a stately, epic piece about the ancient tribes and animals of the Americas and the severing of so many ways of life and migration paths caused by the construction of the Panama Canal.  “The Sun’s Gonna Shine” is an improvisation detaling the passing of a very special summer Sunday at Singing Bridge Performing Arts Lodge in Cummington, Massachusetts.  The piece builds in intensity to a joyful, jazzy conga and piano groove decorated with Mariam’s native flute.  Touches of swirling electronics pull the piece away down a river of sound and the Gaea Star Band eases into the beautiful and elegiac “Heyonomeheyo”, a song of praise to life with a gorgeous vocal from Mariam and a piano performance from Bob that flows from gospel to psychedelic sheets of notes, phasing, echoing and folding backwards on themselves.  Mariam unleashes a soulful, questioning flute solo into a mysterious and shaded coda.  We continue without a pause into a driving, native-flute led instrumental that takes us to the break.  For the last section of the show Mariam picks up the Martin 12-string and spins the tale of “Runaway Pony”, a suspenseful piece full of narrative changes and raga-like modal experimentation.