Of Navajo-Ute heritage, R. Carlos Nakai is the world’s premier performer of the Native American flute. He began his musical studies on the trumpet, but a car accident ruined his embouchure. His musical interests took a turn when he was given a traditional cedar flute as a gift and challenged to master it. As an artist, he is an adventurer and risk taker, always giving his musical imagination free rein. Nakai is also an iconoclastic traditionalist who views his cultural heritage not only as a source and inspiration, but also a dynamic continuum of natural change, growth, and adaptation subject to the artist’s expressive needs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nakai’s first album, Changes, was released by Canyon Records in 1983, and since then he has released over thirty-five albums with Canyon plus additional albums and guest appearances on other labels. In addition to his educational workshops and residencies, Nakai has appeared as a soloist throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan, and has worked with Grammy® winner flutist Paul Horn, guitarist/luthier William Eaton, composer James DeMars among many others. The famed American choreographer Martha Graham used Nakai's second album, Cycles, in her last work Night Chant. Nakai contributed music to the major motion pictures New World (New Line) and Geronimo (Columbia).

Nakai, while cognizant of the traditional use of the flute as a solo instrument, began finding new settings for it, especially in the genres of jazz and classical. He founded the ethnic jazz ensemble, the R. Carlos Nakai Quartet, to explore the intersection of ethnic and jazz idioms.

Nakai brought the flute into the concert hall, performing with over fifteen symphony and chamber orchestras. He was a featured soloist on the Philip Glass composition, Piano Concerto No. 2: After Lewis & Clark, premiered by the Omaha Symphony. Nakai also works with producer and arranger Billy Williams, a two-time Grammy® winner, in composing for and performing the traditional flute in orchestral works of a lighter vein.

 

In a cross-cultural foray, Nakai performed extensively with the Wind Travelin’ Band, a traditional Japanese ensemble from Kyoto which resulted in an album, Island of Bows. Additional recordings with ethnic artists include In A Distant Place with Tibetan flutist and chanter Nawang Khechog, and Our Beloved Land with famed Hawaiian slack key guitarist and singer Keola Beamer. Recently, Nakai released Voyagers with Philadelphia Orchestra cellist Udi Bar-David which blends Native American melodies with Jewish and Arabic songs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Nakai has received two gold records (500,000 units sold) for Canyon Trilogy and Earth Spirit which are the first (and only) Native American recordings to earn this recognition. He has sold over four million albums in the course of his career. Grammy® nominations include Ancestral Voices (1994 Best Traditional Folk Album), Inner Voices and Inside Monument Valley (both for 2000 Best New Age Album), In A Distant Place (2001 Best New Age Album), Fourth World (2002 Best New Age Album), Sanctuary (2003 Best Native American Album), and People of Peace (2004 Best New Age Album).

A Navy veteran, Nakai earned a Master’s Degree in American Indian Studies from the University of Arizona. He was awarded the Arizona Governor’s Arts Award in 1992, and an honorary doctorate from Northern Arizona University in 1994. In 2005 Nakai was inducted into the Arizona Music & Entertainment Hall of Fame. Nakai has also authored a book with composer James DeMars, The Art of the Native American Flute, which is a guide to performing the traditional cedar flute.

 

RV: Given your accomplishments and so many performances that you’ve performed around the world is there a performance that stands out or is most unique to you?

R. Carlos: So many solo and ensemble performances are unique. My first large event at the Chicago Folk Festival is unquestionably the one. Standing alone on the stage after finishing a compila-

 

 

 

 

 

 

-tion of traditional and original melodies I was signaled from the wings backstage to keep going. With what?! Being new to public performance, I hadn’t prepared more songs than I’d need. The only piece was a folk song that I had recently learned but was hesitant to play because it wasn’t set adequately in my mind. After a short introduction I asked the audience to join me in the repeat of the melody. All went fine until the audience kept singing for eight complete verses and I was completely flabbergasted but kept playing. That was the first time I’d played “Amazing Grace”.

 

RV: Your music is inspiring and it amazes me that when I speak with other musicians your name seems to come up often. Was there a time that you ever second guessed yourself?

R. Carlos:  I always seem to second guess myself in all my work but it’s my listeners who make the final assessment. Keeping ego in check and maintaining my own reflective creative space is part and parcel of my life journey.

 

RV: I read where you worked with students, what kind of philosophies and instructions do you try to instill in your students?

R. Carlos: In my work with all my students of flute at the Montana RNAF workshops, I encourage and insist that they speak with their own voice in the sounds of the instrument and apply the philosophy of “I Am the Most Important Person in My World” and reflect on my three “R’s”. And, that the flutes are an extension of their right brain creative mentality which is the balance in this left brained impersonal ego bound competitive and externalized world.

 

RV: I read where you sent a flute to Charles Littleleaf. The impact of your gift led Mr. Littleleaf towards an inspiring journey and path towards music. How does it feel knowing that your gift had a tremendous impact on Mr. Littleleaf?  

R. Carlos: Mr. Littleleaf’s experiences of finding himself in the flutes are his journey alone. All I did to influence Charles was to give him a fairly reliable roadmap to use in his own personal life journey.

 

RV: Where does the inspiration and support for your work come from?

R. Carlos: The inspiration support for my work is derived from my audiences, listeners and those who assist me in getting the word out about the true nature of the traditional Native American flute.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Click” to listen

 

RV:  I was reading a comment that you made about looking forward into the future and read a similar statement by Peter Buffett with regards to his music, “This progression for me was all about reconnecting.. not to romanticize the past, but to take the best of it and bring it into the present.”  Your philosophies appear very similar. Are there dangers in holding on to the past?

R. Carlos: Having studied cultural anthropology and the relevance of that science to how cultures survive or succumb to time I’ve found that many indigenous North American native peoples are doing just that. They live carrying a huge log on their shoulders of anger and guilt about the past and they reinforce this attitude upon succeeding generations. While native peoples in North America were never beaten into submission but overwhelmed by numbers of new Native Americans from other world cultures, the indigenes of North America didn’t lose what the new people had when they were disenfranchised and forcibly removed from their own cultures and sent to the Americas to disappear. I still live in my homeland within my own native cultures and their varied philosophies and find that my primary responsibility is to continue to trudge up the rocky terrain of time while continually reflecting upon and realizing the extreme sacrifice that my ancestors suffered to make me possible. As a traditionalist my journey includes “becoming of service to others, regardless of their multicultural status”.

 

RV: Do you enjoy writing and do you have any plans for any future writes?

R. Carlos: My only writing at the moment is “The Art of the Native American Flute”. I’ve been working on various sorts of things, music, an autobiography in visual format, something about my life journey, people ask for my philosophy and that’s also in the works.

 

RV: Are there any performers who you have much admiration for?

R. Carlos: I’ve been greatly influenced by Vine Deloria, Dr. Robert K. Thomas, Dr. Thomas Holm, Dr. Oliver W. Jones, Joyce “Doc” Tate Nevaquaya, John Emhoolah, John Rainier, Tom Mauchahty Ware, Kevin Locke, Oren Lyons, Tom Bee and XIT, Ken and Penny Light, Flemen and Lettie Nave, and on and on and on…. I am continually encouraged to speak to someone and I always ask their impressions on what I’m doing at the moment. We really need a native think tank just for us as moderns and traditional.

 

RV: Do you currently have any projects in the making and have you ever thought of writing an autobiography!!

R. Carlos: Right now I’m immersed in performance and writing short pieces for varied instruments and a chamber orchestra piece that builds upon the sound of the native flute rather than covers it up with massed strings, brass and percussion. Videographers always accost me about doing my autobiography but they all want to do what they think should be in the project rather than what I want and would like to say about myself visually, graphically and musically. One day!

 

Thank you Mr. Nakai for finding time in your busy schedule to provide this interview. It has been a personal honor for me.  I wish you continued success with your gift of music that continues to, and will always inspire. Please visit R. Carlos Nakai’s website by “clicking here”