David & Steve Gordon

David & Steve Gordon took music lessons together when they were children, and continued the mutual interest through college and beyond. David played the piano, clarinet, and flute, while Steve played the piano, guitar, and drums. They both studied classical music at Los Angeles Valley College and UCLA; at the Grove Music Academy, they expanded their musical horizons by learning modern harmony and jazz from well-known guitarists and keyboardists.

The peaceful forests of the Sequoia National Park offered an escape from the busy world of school, and the brothers found a symphony in the sounds of the forests and streams. They envisioned music that would capture the essence of these magical places, so they returned many times to record the sounds of nature. Back in the studio, they blended these sounds with music composed to reflect the serene beauty of the healing environments.

They released their first album, Misty Forest Morning, in 1983 on their Sequoia Records label. This definitive best-selling recording was one of the first relaxation albums to combine music with the sounds of nature. They released several similar titles; 1987's Oneness and Garden of Serenity albums. Garden of Serenity is one of the top-selling music/nature albums in history.

Their Inner Environment series, Astral Journey and Celestial Suite, moved into new musical territory as the brothers explored the boundaries of electronic space music; their 1993 album, Music of the Tarot, exhibits the best of this series. In 1994, they released Sacred Earth Drums, adding hand drumming, tribal drumming, Native American flutes, and other world instruments to their musical palette. This album was the top-selling drumming album in the new age market for both 1994 and 1995. Sacred Spirit Drums, its 1996 sequel, followed. The following year, the Gordons released Garden of Serenity II in celebration of the album's ten-year anniversary. This year also marked the appearance of a new artist on their label when they released Fairy of the Woods by Gary Stadler. Drum Medicine, which was recorded in the Gordons' new studio, Sequoia Sound, was issued in 1999. It went on to become a top seller for new age distributors and remained in the Top Five for the next two years.

In 2002, the Gordons celebrated 20 years of music-making, issuing the collection Sacred Drum Visions, to commemorate their anniversary. Steve also released his first solo album, Drum Prayer. This album featured distinct arrangements of ancient Shaman rhythms, trance beats, and old world chants, and went on to win the COVR award for Best World Album. The brothers' founded Sequoia Groove before the year's end. This electronica label has become well-known for its Buddha Lounge and Café de Luna compilations.

Heart of Peace, music for healing, appeared in 2003. Months later, the released of Garden of Serenity III. This mixture blended light woodwind arrangements with natural European elements, continuing the brothers' work with the Inner Music Series. Pillow Music: Natural Deep Sleep, a set created especially for slumberland, followed in 2005.

from Wikipedia:

David & Steve Gordon are a Billboard-charting New Age music and chillout music recording artist duo, record producers and founders of the independent label Sequoia Records. Since their first album in 1982, they have recorded more than 25 albums ranging from traditional new age music and ambient meditative soundscapes to shamanic drumming with native american flute, celtic music and world music-influenced electronica. They are among the first artists to record relaxation music blended with sounds of nature. The Gordon brothers have described their music as an expression of their interests in meditation, Eastern spirituality, and Western nature-based forms of spirituality. A 2005 survey conducted by New Age Retailer magazine ranked David & Steve Gordon as the fourth most well known new age music artist among specialty retailers. The Gordon brothers have also produced several compilations of downtempo recordings, including among others the Buddha-Lounge series, with six volumes released to date.

Career

The Gordons' first album, Misty Forest Morning, was released in 1982, featuring mainly piano and acoustic guitars, with some synthesizer and sounds of nature they recorded in Sequoia National Forest, the location that was the inspiration for the name of their record label, Sequoia Records Their second album Peaceful Evening and several more albums in a similar style followed soon after, then in 1985 they branched out into electronic spacemusic with Astral Journey and Celestial Suite.

In 1987 they returned to nature-inspired music with Garden of Serenity, the first of several releases in their Inner Music series of albums that featured longer meditative compositions . (A sequel, Garden of Serenity II, followed in 1998.) The early 1990s saw another of their electronic spacemusic releases with Music of the Tarot.

Beginning in 1994 with Sacred Earth Drums, David & Steve Gordon branched out into world fusion music, adding African, Middle Eastern and Native American drums and percussion plus Native American flute and Incan pan pipes to the mix, along with acoustic and electric guitars, synthesizers, and continuing their use of sounds of nature as musical elements. The song titles and liner notes portrayed the story of a mythical shaman who journeys to the spirit world to find healing for his people and for the Earth. Sacred Earth Drums became the top-selling drumming album in the New Age market for both 1994 and 1995 and by 2002 had sold over 300,000 units. Following a sequel in 1996 titled Sacred Spirit Drums, their 1999 release Drum Medicine entered Billboard's Top New Age Albums chart in April, 2000, and also in 2000, received the Coalition of Visionary Retailers Record of the Year and Best World Album awards and the New Age Voice Native Heart Award and was listed in the top 5 albums of New Age specialty distributors for two years.

From the mid 1990s and into the 2000s, David & Steve Gordon produced albums by recording artists Zingaia, Sophia Songhealer, EverStar and Jaya Lakshmi. Through their record label Sequoia Records, they released albums by recording artists Gary Stadler, Wendy Rule, Shajan, Christina Lux, Alquimia and Gleisberg; and several compilations of meditative and world-influenced New Age music including Musical Healing in 2001 and Perfect Balance in 2006.

In 2006, the Gordon brothers released Soothing Sanctuary, ambient music with nature sounds, a re-version of the earlier release "Sanctuary" (so stated in the liner notes) with new arrangements and remastering. Also in 2006 came Shaman's Vision Journey, featuring shamanic drum beats and mantras in the languages of cultures from around the world, including Mayan, Sanskrit, Lakota and Tibetan chants. In 2007 and 2008, they released a pair of 25th anniversary retrospectives, Sound Peace, focusing on meditative selections, and Earth Drum, a collection of drum and native flute tracks packaged with a DVD of wilderness scenery from national parks around the USA set to the music of the compilation album. Earth Drum was awarded the 2009 Coalition of Visionary Retailers awards for Album of the Year and Best World Album.

Also in the early 2000s, the Gordons introduced a second record label imprint, Sequoia Groove, specializing in chill-out music compilations, including the Buddha-Lounge series that charted in Billboard in 2004, Cafe de Luna, Hotel Tara, and others; and world music influenced electronica artists including Tya, and Achillea (featuring Jens Gad of Enigma). New recordings by the Gordon brothers in the chillout genre were included in several of these compilations, and in 2008 they released their first album of downtempo electronic music, Yoga Planet, followed by their second album of chillout music in 2009, Nirvana Groove.

David & Steve Gordon released two albums of world drum and percussion music in 2009, an upbeat recording titled Drum Cargo: Rhythms of Fire, and an album of quiet drum beats with crystal bowls and native flutes titled Meditation Drum, that according to the liner notes is intended to encourage meditation and relaxation. In 2010 they returned to Native American flute music with the album Gratitude.