Multi-Instrumentalist and composer Jamshied Sharifi is set to release his second solo album One on April 8th, 2008.  Drenched in world rhythms and instrumentation, accented by contemporary Western influences, One invites the listener to journey to places off the map through its blending of cultures, performers, and sounds.

Sharifi invited internationally influential names to lend their voices to this momentous album.  “I wanted to put together singers and musicians who wouldn’t normally perform together and see where that led” says Sharifi.  “I was intentionally disrespectful of world music ‘boundaries’, hoping that the spirit of cooperation and mutual respect would prevail.” 

The result is a luminous collection of songs which shape and shift like small novels.  On the opening track “One”, Sharifi orchestrates a stage of layered instrumentation for Tibetan songstress Yungchen Lhamo to weave intricate vocal melodies.  “My thought was that this track would set the tone of the whole project” explains Sharifi.  “By combining performances of Yungchen Lhamo and a West African singer, it would define the space in which this project would live.”  Yungchen, who was encouraged directly by the Dalai Lama to share her inimitable voice to the world, is joined by Malian vocalist Abdoulaye Diabaté.  On the passionate “Darfur Is Burning,” a response to our and the world’s inaction in the face of what can only be called genocide, Diabaté’s soulful vocals plead over the delicate kora playing of Mamadou Diabaté.

Grammy Award winner Paula Cole lends her well-known voice to “My Grandfather, The Tree” and “A Charlotte Sky”, which Sharifi wrote for Cole’s daughter with Hassan Hakmoun, who joins Cole on the track.  Hakmoun performs on two other songs including the album’s closing track “Requiem”, which was written at the request of John Diliberto at Echoes soon after 9/11.  Sharifi invited Irish whistle player Séamus Egan, of the band Solas, to play the melody and Hakmoun to sing the brief lament in the middle of the song.  Reflects Sharifi, “It’s worth remembering that 9/11 has been, for most Muslims, a tragedy as well.”

Also appearing on the album are critically acclaimed vocalist Sussan Deyhim of Tehran and North Indian vocalist Vishal Vaid.  Remarkably, Vaid infuses his performances with the ancient technique of Ghazal singing, creating the perfect counterpart to Sharifi’s haunting yet “stunningly beautiful” (Amazon.com) compositions.

It is perhaps Sharifi’s background in film scoring (Muppets From Space, Clockstoppers, The Thomas Crown Affair) which provides the springboard for creating his layered inventions of beauty.  His first solo album A Prayer for the Soul of Layla received prestigious recognition including Best Contemporary World Music Album at the 1st Annual New Age Voice Music Awards.  The Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel extolled “Prayer has a film-score quality of its own… seen through the eyes of a knowledgeable expatriate.”  One continues this voyage with exquisite combinations of sounds and performances.