Album Notes

"First One" is the limited edition, original version of "Salma Har", currently distributed by Ajna Music, with one different track, as well as a different song order, mix and mastering.
The music of "First One" covers a broad range of ideas blending influences from Africa, Cuba, India and the Middle East with classical composition and popular European/American songwriting. "First One" bestows a lush and vivid approach to music, initially intended to accompany the practice of yoga. The seven compositions are designed to support the emotional and energetic states explored during a variety of other healthy physical disciplines as well, such as Modern dance classes, Pilates, N.I.A., DanceKinetics, creative movement and meditation. As an album, the seven tracks collectively create a dynamic arch that builds, peaks and resolves to score a long drive through the mountains, help the traffic get you home faster or accent the background of a gathering. Individually the compositions may be arranged in any order, for they each are well crafted to engage and inspire the open listener, the creative dancer and the yogi.

Ajna Music recording artist, Tom Rossi, is an emerging composer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and music healer living in Brooklyn, New York. His work fuses the ancient and modern, the emotional and intellectual, the common and exotic, the classical and contemporary into an alluring new sound. Proficient on many instruments including, but not limited to guitar, flute, percussion, clarinet, kalimba, kora, piano and voice, he possesses a broad palette from which to draw his ideas. Expeditions to West Africa, Cuba, Brazil and Turkey, along with his education at Berklee College of Music in Boston, have greatly influenced his approach as a composer and a musician.
An accomplished hand drummer, Tom Rossi studied with masters such as Giovanni Hidalgo and Papa Ladji Camara in the U.S. He lived in Ghana and Togo, West Africa for seven months attending local voodoo and other ritual ceremonies. He studied the traditional musical styles of the Ewe and Ga people, learning Kpanlogo and other forms of social and religious drumming, song and dance at the school of world-renowned master drummer Mustapha Tetty Addy. Tom also spent time with Afro Cuba, Changito and members of Los Papines on location in Havana and Matanzas, Cuba, as well as studying and playing in the streets of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, absorbing the rich music of Candomble and the internationally acclaimed cultural ensemble Olodum.
Tom has earned his living for many years as an accompanist for African, Cuban, Brazilian, Hip Hop and Modern dance, as well as yoga and meditation classes in and around New York City. As a player on many recordings, scoring for films and composing for theatrical and dance productions, he has gained considerable experience and recognition for his style and his work. He is also a graduate of the IM School of Healing Arts, with a practice in music healing for the terminally ill at the Metropolitan Hospice and Caring Hospice in Brooklyn.