April 17, 2008
East meets West
DUH’s Jon Seskevich and local musician A.C. Bushnell combine ancient sacred words with traditional American music
This article was originally published in the April 2008 edition of Inside Duke Medicine.
For A.C. Bushnell, it’s not a violin —it’s a fiddle. With that one word, you know the kind of music the Chapel Hill musician makes. It is not the rarefied strains found in the concert hall, but the sweet, American traditional music that has flowed from the back porches of Central North Carolina homes on Friday nights for 400 years.
Last summer, that tradition took a new turn when Bushnell teamed with Jon Seskevich, R.N., a nurse clinician and stress management expert at Duke University Hospital.
For years, Seskevich has explored the healing power of words and touch and music.
In private life, he has been interested in all kinds of expressions of spirituality, particularly the notion that nearly every faith group has a tradition of chanting, of ritually repeating meaningful words.
During chanting, he said, “negativity and stress flies off of you.”
Once, at a concert, Bushnell noticed a fellow dancing and smiling to Bushnell’s instrumental music. It was Seskevich.
Later, the two talked.
“He said, ‘Do you want to know what I was doing? I said, ‘Sure’” Bushnell said. “He said, ‘While you were playing, I was chanting the names of God.’”
Bushnell invited him over to his house to jam.
Seskevich, who produced with friends a diverse album of chants in 2004, chanted from the Hindu tradition while Bushnell played songs he’d learn3ed from old-time players.
“I dunno, it just worked,” Bushnell said. “The traditional music comes from the grassroots, the old-time songs. And the chanting is even older-time music, like 10,000 years ago.”
Last year, Bushnell put out anew album, “Dancing on the water,” on which Seskevich provided lyrics and sings harmony. Provided with the album is a DVD that frankly discusses Bushnell’s successful struggle with liver cancer and how that experience affected him and his art.
On the album are two tracks of Roots-Chant fusion. Both are old Americana instrumentals tweaked by Seskevich’s chanting.
In “Shiva at the Falls of Richmond,” a chant invoking the Hindu god – Om Namah Shivaaya — is laid over an old Appalachian banjo tune.
The two also reconceived the rollicking old fiddle tune “jimmy Johnson,” by singing with it a version of “Gopala,” — Devakiananda na Gopala – an old Sanskrit chant about a mother’s unconditional love for her baby.
“A wonderful thing happened when we put the two together,” Seskevich said. “It makes you want to dance. It makes you happy.”
The two are working on another album. They hope to have it done by Labor Day.
Listen to “Shiva at the Falls of Richmond” and “jimmy Johnson Gopala” at http://inside.dukemedicine.org
Find “Dancing on the Water” and Seskevich’s album of sacred chants at the Duke University Medical Center bookstore.