When you step into THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS, leave your preconceptions behind -- about Airto as jazz giant, about music as solely entertainment. This is a work like no other in a long and remarkable career, a testimony to Airto's lifelong fascination with the confluence of music and spirit. Airto explains, "This is a recording of sounds as well as songs, healing sounds that can lift your spirits and transport you to another plane. It is not a creation of my intellect, but of my spirit and soul. Since my childhood in Brazil I have been exposed on many occasions to spiritual phenomena. I have learned from my friends and elders that human beings are formed of three basic elements: physical, mental, and spiritual. We also have two bodies, the physical body and the spiritual body, or aura. The spirit body can travel to places that the material body cannot. It is these places I speak of when I say 'the other side of this.'"
Airto's belief in the power of music as a medium for physical and spiritual healing began during his earliest formative years. He was born -- in 1941 in Santa Catarina, Brazil -- into a family of itinerant healers. His grandmother was a nomadic spiritual healer who traveled from village to village, treating the sick with herbs and ancient wisdoms. She gave him his first tambourine when he was two years old. His father also treated the afflicted, practicing Kardecism to channel healing techniques from the spirit world. Airto says his father taught him "how to interact with the spirit world, and I learned that I, too, shared my family's history of healing -- the difference was that I healed with sound."
THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS was recorded at the home studio of producer and Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart in 1991. It was the latest of their many collaborative projects over the years, since meeting when Miles Davis opened for the Dead at the Fillmore West in 1970. Airto's percussive genius is featured in a diverse array of musical settings, performing solo, or in combination with the stellar cast of featured musicians assembled at Hart's home. The album's 13 selections, rooted in the Afro-Brazilian traditions of Airto's heritage, take the listener on an aural tour of imaginary landscapes; its liner notes provide guided visualizations to transport the listener step by step through a sweeping array of feelings, from reflection to celebration.
