"I've always known music as a way of spontaneously expressing free heart feeling," says guitarist and metaphysical theorist Tisziji Munoz in an e-mail from his home in upstate New York. "Playing music as a broken or wounded heart is a constant characteristic of my heart feeling, or Soul, as some call it."
Munoz' latest album, "Shaman-Bala," which means "strong medicine man," is a sustained explosion of the Soul that will floor any listener who likes it heavy, raw and loud. Recorded live in New York City, it features a former John Coltrane drummer-of-choice, Rashied Ali, Bernie Senesky on piano and Don Pate on bass. At times the quartet channels the music so hard that only Ali's remarkable intuition and sure hand hold it together.
Commenting on the recording, Munoz says, "Every time I play the way that I play, it is an opportunity to be creative and enter the transcendent fire of Spirit. This is easy to do with Rashied and the other cats on the 'Shaman-Bala' CD."