Night Chants – Native American Flute

Native American flute albums are oddities in the music business. They have a faithful audience, but not in the mainstream market. Not surprisingly, record stores rarely stock albums such as this because they don’t know where to file them. New Age? Folk music? World music? All of the above would be true in their own way, but, by default, Native American flute music is of therapeutic origin.

Night Chants offers 16 original compositions played on a variety of Dakota, Hopi and Navajo two-chamber flutes, expressing joy, sorrow, love and belief. It would be easy to dismiss Gary Stroutsos as a Paul Horn wannabe for the spa- and yoga-obsessed generation – the kitsch cover and occasional birdsong and nature sound effects could perhaps fuel this assumption – but that would mean ignoring his significant contribution to the preservation of Native American music and culture via the indigenous elders who have asked him to set their songs on his flute. It's a fine line, but Gary Stroutsos is on the right side of it.