Swara Samrat Maestro Ali Akbar Khan
April 14, 1922 – June 18, 2009
Our most beloved Khansahib passed away peacefully, surrounded by his family on Thursday evening. Khansahib had been a dialysis patient since 2004, and had been enduring numerous health issues ever since. The great Maestro had continued his music teachings publically at the Ali Akbar College until just weeks ago, and continued to teach music at home until the day he died.
To pay tribute please go HERE
Dead 2009 Downloads
From Greensboro to the Gorge, you can download every show from The Dead's 2009 tour! Setlists will be posted shortly after each show's end, and downloads will be available as soon as possible - usually within 24 hours.
The Dead Tour 2009 - All Access
Features include streaming audio from all the shows, video and photo blogs from rehearsals, backstage and concert footage, an interactive Photomosaic of The Dead 2009 tour logo made up of over 500 photographs of the band, news feed with live updates, set lists within seconds of a song being played from each concert, and an MP3 download consisting of two hours of live music from the tour.
"The Dead Tour 2009" is available for $19.99 from Apple's App store
Celebrating the rhythmic power of the planets and the stars, The Dead brings "Touring the Universe of Sound" to the web! You can check out the preview info and images, and after each show of The Dead's '09 Spring Tour, sound clips will be added to the site, representing different planets and cosmic events like the big bang, the rings of saturn, that the band will be interacting with! For all the details and to enjoy this sonic tour, click here.
Several shows from The Dead’s upcoming spring tour will be broadcast on SIRIUS XM’s Grateful Dead Channel.
The live broadcasts will kick off with The Dead's show at the DCU Center in Worcester, MA on Saturday, April 18. In addition to live concert broadcasts, SIRIUS XM listeners will “have access to behind-the-scenes updates from various stops along on the tour.” David Lemieux, the band’s archivist and host of the Grateful Dead Channel's "Today in Grateful Dead History," and Grateful Dead Almanac editor Gary Lambert will co-host the live broadcasts. Listeners will also be able to call into the station at 1-877-767-DEAD.
Tibetan Chants for World Peace CD by the Gyuto Monks Tantric Choir was featured in a NPR Morning Edition Story in conversation with Hudson Smith and Mickey Hart.
The Tibetan Buddhist chants on this album had never been recorded until 2001, when Grateful Dead's Mickey Hart brought The Gyuto Monks Tantric Choir to his California studio to record the incredible multiphonics of their sacred rituals. The monks gave Hart permission to overdub their voices, achieving the huge sound of the 100-voice choir as one might hear at their mountain monastery – with each monk's voice singing a complete, extraordinary chord.
Gyuto Tantric University preserves one of Tibetan Buddhism's most esoteric traditions, training many young Tibetan monks in the spiritual legacy of the Gyuto order.
All royalties from sales of this recording go to Gyuto Tantric University.
Learn more and please support the Gyuto Monks here in the US by visiting their Gyuto Vajrayana Center located in San Jose, CA
The Dead at the Inaugural Ball
Find The Dead's rehearsal and other selected video posts and rehearsal photos.
Check back often for Mickey's updates and insights from The Dead Tour.
Mickey Hart and Sikiru Adepoju
Global Drum Project Wins a Grammy
Congratulations to the Global Drum Project—Mickey Hart, Zakir Hussain, Sikiru Adepoju & Giovanni Hidalgo—whose album was awarded a Grammy as Best Contemporary World Music Album.
Thanks to all of you who have supported the Global Drum Project's efforts!
Find out more and hear samples of the album at Shout Factory
Rhythm Devils DVD Out Now! The Ultimate Concert Experience
A 2 DVD set and 24 page hardcover book featuring Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann (Grateful Dead), Mike Gordon (Phish), Steve Kimock, Sikiru and Jen Durkin. This DVD was filmed in Chicago during their fall tour in 2006 and it will be available this summer on The Mickey Hart Band Tour and online at various outlets. With original material from Robert Hunter and the band, this experience is unlike any other concert. Sit back, relax and take a 72 minute magic ride through time and space.
Jambase.com Green Apple Fest | 04.20 | USA - Review Click here to read the review.
Shout! Factory Releases The Catalog Of Legendary Grateful Dead Drummer Mickey Hart - Click Here To Purchase
Titles Include The Grammy® Award-Winning Planet Drum, Diga Rhythm Band, At The Edge, Supralingua and Mickey Hart's Mystery Box.
Available Now.
Catalog Releases Follow Hart’Äôs Most Recent Release Global Drum Project,
Also available on Shout! Factory.
Los Angeles, CA ’Äì Shout! Factory will be reissuing a series of titles from the catalog of the Grateful Dead’Äôs legendary percussionist Mickey Hart. Planet Drum and Diga Rhythm Band will be available in stores on March 18, and At The Edge, Supralingua, and Mickey Hart’Äôs Mystery Box will be available on April 15. These titles will also be available as digital downloads for the first time.
Over three decades as the innovative percussion engine of the Grateful Dead, Mickey Hart's ear for global sounds brought numerous unpredictable guests to the Dead's stage performances.
Hart's 1991 release Planet Drum was the natural outgrowth of this adventure, showcasing his gift as a supreme catalyst in convening the world's finest percussion talent for a dazzling collaboration, including Zakir Hussain, who is an international phenomenon in his own right. Planet Drum was recorded in Hart's Sonoma County home studio, with the Dead's legendary crew turning virtually every room in the house into a work zone for each musician. The album won the first-ever Grammy® for Best World Music Album, spent an unprecedented 26 weeks at #1 on the Billboard World Music chart, and remains a favorite to this day.
Diga Rhythm Band, one of the first world music recordings, is a crystalline celebration of drumming and percussion featuring Hart, Hussain, nine other rhythmatists, and Jerry Garcia on two tracks. At The Edge, an exploration of the music of primeval man, is a serene soundscape of tuned percussion, ambient natural sounds, and guitar treatments by Jerry Garcia. The album is the companion to Hart’Äôs acclaimed book debut, Drumming at the Edge of Magic (Harper San Francisco 1990). Mickey Hart's Mystery Box is an effervescent, pop-inflected album, full of breezy songs with layered vocals by England's Mint Juleps - and a vocal debut by Mickey Hart. On Supralingua Hart continued to push the "tribal space" boundaries of percussion and sound, beyond his Grammy¬Æ-winning Planet Drum, with some of the same stellar guest personnel.
The release of these titles come on the heels of Global Drum Project, a collaboration from Mickey Hart and Indian tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, consisting of tranced-out grooves, elegant electronic programming and hypnotic tuned percussion. Released earlier this year on Shout! Factory, the album garnered rave reviews. The Washington Post called the album ’Äúsubtle and complex yet primal as a heartbeat," and NPR’Äôs Fresh Air declared the project "smart, honorable and admirable."
www.shoutfactory.comGlobal Drum Project
Mickey Hart's three decades as the innovative percussion engine of the Grateful Dead, earned him Rock & Roll Hall of Fame status and worldwide notoriety. Years of constant touring also afforded him a platform for introducing his lifelong interest in multicultural sounds (rooted in childhood exposure to his mother's collection of early Folkways ethnographic recordings) to the American public; he presented on the Dead's performance stage such diverse artists as the great Yoruban drum legend Babatunde Olatunji, Brazil's multi-talented Airto Moreira, Sudanese oud master Hamza El Din, and Nigerian talking drum ace Sikiru Adepoju.
Hart's longtime friend and collaborator Zakir Hussain is one of the world's giants of Indian classical music, a virtuoso percussionist globally acknowledged as the master of his art. Son of the fabled Ustad Allah Rakha, he made his debut with Ravi Shankar in 1970, and has recorded with George Harrison, Tito Puente, Van Morrison, Pharoah Saunders and many more - and co-founded fusion supergroup Shakti with guitarist John McLaughlin. His prolific career is studded with awards and honors, including being the youngest musician ever to be awarded the title of Padma Shri by the government of India.
The groundbreaking 1991 Planet Drum united Hart, Hussain, Olatunji, Adepoju, Moreira, Puerto Rican master conguero Giovanni Hidalgo and others in a sparkling fusion of global percussion, winning the first-ever Grammy for World Music - and soaring to #1 on Billboard's world music chart, where it stayed for an unprecedented 26 weeks.
Global Drum Project once again finds the all-stars collaborating, in a collection of tranced-out, mesmerizing grooves and elegant electronic programming. Performers include Planet Drum alumni Giovanni Hidalgo on Latin percussion and Sikiru Adepoju on talking drum, as well as Taufiq Qureshi on percussion and vocals, Niladari Kumar on sitar, Dilshad Khan on sarangi. The late Babatunde Olatunji is heard as well, in sampled "guest" vocals.
Coinciding with this release, previously unavailable digital reissues of essential Mickey Hart back-catalog -- Diga Rhythm Band, At The Edge, Planet Drum, Mystery Box, and Supralingua -- will become available via the iTunes Music Store, with physical re-issues planned for 2008.
Dead 2009 Downloads
The Dead Tour 2009 - All Access
Tipper Rocks!
The Dead Rehearsal Images
Mickey's Art Show
