Surya Botofasina’s mentorship with Alice Coltrane and his upbringing at the famed Sai Anantam Ashram can be clearly felt on his Carlos Niño-produced debut record.

Available today from Spiritmuse Records, Everyone’s Children is a transcendent combination of ambient, spiritual jazz and meditative new age music. The tracks are minimalist in nature, often featuring just relaxed piano or keyboard melodies and subtle percussion drifting through cottony synthesizer clouds. This is especially true with “Sun of Keshava” and “Surya Meditation,” the latter of which opens and sets the dreamy tone of the record.

Yet, other songs, like “Waves for Margie” and “Beloved California Temple” lean deeper into Botofasina’s devotional jazz background, with harp, sax and spirited vocalizations blending with twinkling chimes and shimmering percussion. In the case of the former of these two songs, sounds of the sea and a spoken word passage ground the music in a very personal place, reminding the listener that this album is very much about Botofasina’s family, his home and everything else that inspired him to become the artist he is today.

Although, because this record is about so many universal things like paying homage to your collective family and your childhood home, it’s one that just about everyone could relate to, despite it being so personal. Anyone with a loving heart could identify with the warmth in these reverberating keyboard tones and piano trills, the passion in the vocals and the joy that radiates from just about every second of this LP .

If you’re a fan of Alice Coltrane, Carlos Niño or Salamanda, then you’re going to instantly love this record. Click here to get your copy today.

-KH