03-19-26 Gaea Star Crystal Radio Hour #660 is another hour of visionary, dynamic improvised acoustic music played by Mariam Massaro and Bob Sherwood of the Gaea Star Band with Mariam on vocals, Native flute, ukulele, shruti box, sitar, acoustic guitar and mandolin and Bob on piano and tablas. Recorded live at Singing Brook Studio in Worthington, Massachusetts in early March of 2026, today’s show begins with the powerful spring anthem “Let’s Weave A Brand-New Story”, a mysterious and energetic raga driven by Mariam’s dancing ukulele and Bob’s imaginative piano. “Oh, The Winds Of Change” is an inspired, spacious piece punctuated by Mariam’s soaring Native flute through a series of powerful movements and “Keep On Loving Life” is a lovely, gentle acoustic guitar ballad with a gorgeous vocal from Mariam atop rolling piano and chiming guitar chords. Mariam strums her evocatively twanging mandolin for the misty, mystical wind song “Where Are We About To Fly?” as Bob composes a bittersweet, melancholic, Prokofiev-like piano motif to support the powerful vocal. For the next suite of improvisations, Mariam strums her exotic, atmospheric sitar, beginning with the dream-like “Maha Lakshmi”, a sweetly droning raga featuring Mariam’s fine vocal and Bob’s propulsive tabla work. Delicate, lyrical Native flute excursions and tabla polyrhythms lead languidly to today’s closer, the gorgeous, powerful, spacious “Nature At Her Best” a sitar raga that grows into a progressive, dynamic piece of modern music with Bob’s insistent, subtly shifting ostinatos and Mariam’s beautifully choreographed vocal-and-Native-flute dialogs.
Learn more about Mariam here: http://www.mariammassaro.com
