SURYA BOTOFASINA - Ashram Sun

Ashram Sun is a transcendent journey toward the inner source of Surya Botofasina’s musical being. Returning to the places and spaces of his spiritual and musical upbringing, the keyboardist and vocalist’s second LP for Spiritmuse after 2022’s acclaimed Everyone’s Children delivers an inspiring meditation on the works and message of his mentor, Swamini Turiyasangitananda, better known as Alice Coltrane, and takes us back to his grounding in the Sai Anantam Ashram – a Vedic ashram built and founded by Coltrane in Santa Monica, California, in 1983. By this time, the spiritual jazz colossus had already taken the name Turiyasangitananda, dedicating Her remaining decades living, teaching, and seeking spiritual enlightenment through prayer, meditation and music. Ashram Sun rises in the light of Her spirit. 

Produced by the prolific Carlos Niño, whose vision has become a pivotal point for contemporary progressive jazz music, Ashram Sun features appearances from musical luminaries, including multi-instrumentalist Angel Bat Dawid, Los Angeles saxophonist Randal Fisher, vocalist Mia Doi Todd, as well as collaborations with vocalist MidnightRoba and acclaimed harpist and vocalist Radha Botofasina, among others. The album continues to expand on and conversate with the innovative spiritual-jazz configurations of recent works by Shabaka Hutchings, André 3000 and Carlos Niño —all of which Surya plays on. This evolution follows from his debut album ‘Everyone’s Children’, also produced by Niño, which was one of the earliest offerings of this fresh, spiritual approach. As the keyboardist on André 3000’s New Blue Sun and an integral member of André’s touring group, Surya has already directly brought the legacy of Alice Coltrane/Turiyasangitananda into this rich new current in creative music. 

The music on Ashram Sun is tuned into these wavelengths, consolidating a new jazz lineage with energies directly from the source. The album blends improvisation in the creative music tradition with washes of cleanly spiritualised keyboard work, atmospheric percussion, and sanctified vocalisation. Key points of reference might be ambient works of maestro Laraaji, the sounds of the Californian New Age movement documented on the seminal I Am The Center collection, and key inspirations of Surya including the music of McCoy Tyner, Jodeci, DJ Quik, Dr. Dre, Kendrick Lamar, Robert Glasper, and the multitude of new works that have flowed from the milieu around key collaborators Carlos Niño and Nate Mercereau. And due to Surya’s formation at Sai Anantam Ashram, the divine aspects of the work have a powerful first-hand connection to the sacred musical and spiritual messages of both the expansive earlier music of Turiyasangitananda as Alice Coltrane, including Lord of Lords and Universal Consciousness, and her magnificent late ashram recordings, as recently documented on the collection World Spirituality Classic vol.1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda.

As her mentee from his youth, Surya knew Her music intimately, for he was raised from childhood in Sai Anantam, where his mother Radha Botofasina, who plays harp and sings on ‘Your Soul is Perfect (Supreme Uniter)’, was a spiritual student of Turiyasangitananda. His musical, personal and spiritual growth within the Ashram remains the central reference point in his life. ‘The very core of my being resides and has been cultivated at the sacred grounds of Sai Anantam Ashram,’ he says today. ‘Each value, aspect, place, memory, person, quality, feeling, bhajan, Satsang, energetic representation collectively composes this person.’ As the album’s title indicates, he was and is an ‘Ashram Sun’, and the strong feminine presence of Swamini Turiyasangitananda and his mother Radha infuses the album’s ten tracks. 

In 2018, just over a decade after Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda’s passing, wildfires in California tragically burned the Sai Anantam Ashram to the ground. The light of the Ashram set in the flames, but Ashram Sun allows it to rise again in energy and music. The cover of the album features Surya on the steps of the fire-cleansed Ashram, a dedication to the place that he still calls ‘home’ and a statement of his devotion to the enspirited sound-message that Turiyasangitananda instilled in him. ‘The Ashram has taught me how to be a father to my unbelievably beautiful son and daughter; brother to the immediate and soul family; human being to the planet, and more,’ he explains. ‘Swamini and the Ashram has taught me that the only place worth going to, is within… I am always going to be an Ashram Sun.’ 

Surya Botofasina 2024 Tour Dates:
Aug. 27 - Santa Monica, CA - A Tribute to the life & devotional music of Swaminituriyasangitananda Alice Coltrane (Surya Botfasina and Carlos Niño)

New Blue Sun (André 3000) Fall Tour Dates 2024:
Aug. 30 - Sep. 1 - Napa Valley, CA @ Blue Note Jazz Festival
Sep. 3 - Big Sur, CA @ Henry Miller Memorial Library
Sep. 4 - Big Sur, CA @ Henry Miller Memorial Library
Sep. 5 - Big Sur, CA @ Henry Miller Memorial Library
Sep. 19 - New Orleans, LA @ Orpheum Theater
Sep. 21 - Dallas, TX @ Winspear Opera House
Sep. 22 - Austin, TX @ Austin City Limits Live - Moody Theater
Sep. 25 - Houston, TX @ The Hobby Centre For The Performing Arts
Sep. 27 - Albuquerque, NM @ Kiva Auditorium
Sep. 28 - Mesa, AZ @ Mesa Arts Center
Oct. 1 - San Diego, CA @ Humphrey’s Concerts by the Bay
Oct. 2 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Greek Theatre
Oct. 4 - Santa Barbara, CA @ Arlington Theatre
Oct. 5 - Oakland, CA @ Fox Theatre
Oct. 9 - Seattle, WA @ Paramount Theatre
Oct. 11 - Vancouver, BC @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre
Oct. 14 - Portland, OR @ Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall 
Oct. 16 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Eccles Theatre
Oct. 17 - Denver, CO @ Ellie Caulkins Opera House
Oct. 19 Minneapolis, MN @ Northrop
Oct. 21 - Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed 
Oct. 22 - Detroit, MI @ Masonic Cathedral Theatre
Oct. 25 - Brooklyn, NY @ BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Oct. 26 - Brooklyn, NY @ BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Oct. 30 - Boston, MA @ Boch Centre Wang Theatre
Nov. 1 - Philadelphia, PA @ The Met
Nov. 2 Akron, OH @ Akron Civic Centre
Nov. 8 Richmond, VA @ Altria Theatre
Nov. 9 Richmond, VA @ The Kennedy Centre
Nov. 12 Boston, MA @ Wang Theatre at Boch Center 
Nov. 14 Atlanta, GA @ Fox Theatre 
+ MORE TBA