Insomnia and Seven Steps to Grace

Joy Harjo’s debut album for Smithsonian Folkways, Insomnia and Seven Steps to Grace, feels like a hand reaching out in the dark.

It carries the warmth of someone who has lived through storms and still chooses to sing.

Produced by Grammy‑winning bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding, the album blends jazz, poetry, and improvisation in a way that feels both ancient and new, rooted and searching. It’s the kind of work that reminds you music can be a place to rest, even when the world feels heavy.

Long before she became the first Native American US Poet Laureate, Harjo was a saxophonist, a storyteller, a keeper of rhythms that came from her Muscogee (Creek) heritage and her own long journey through art. This album gathers all those threads, weaving them together to honor both the joy and the sorrow of survival. You hear the poet in her phrasing, the musician in her breath, the elder in her patience. Nothing feels rushed. Nothing feels forced. The songs unfold like someone lighting a small fire and inviting you to sit close.

Spalding’s production deepens that sense of intimacy. Her ear for texture and space gives Harjo room to move, to improvise, to follow the spirit of each moment. The music leans into jazz but never stays in one lane. It drifts toward spoken word, toward prayer, toward the kind of improvisation that feels like a conversation with ancestors. You can hear the trust between the two artists, one guiding, one offering, both listening.

There is cultural memory woven through every track. Her words remind us that we are part of something larger than our individual struggles. Even in sleepless hours, we are connected to people who came before us and to communities that continue to hold one another up.

At the heart of the album is what Harjo calls a “vibration of love.” It’s not a soft or sentimental love. It’s the kind that rises up when despair tries to take hold. The kind that refuses to let hate have the last word. These songs carry that vibration in steady waves. Her words acknowledge the grief and exhaustion that come from living in a society shaped by power and division, but they don’t stay there. Instead, she reaches for connection across cultures, across generations, and across the distances we sometimes feel inside ourselves.

The album’s title, Insomnia, speaks to the restless nights many of us know too well, when worry keeps the mind awake. Seven Steps to Grace is a path created through music, leading us back to balance, even if the steps are uneven or slow. Harjo doesn’t pretend the way forward is simple. She just shows that it’s possible, and that music can help us remember our own strength.

I Am a Prayer

Featuring Joy Harjo, Ganavya, Matthew Stevens, Justin Tyson, Esperanza Spalding, and Ganavya Doraiswamy.

Listening to this album feels like being reminded of something you didn’t realize you’d forgotten: that creativity can be a form of healing, that traditions can meet without losing themselves, and that real love has a sound. Harjo and Spalding have made something that honors Native roots while welcoming anyone willing to listen with an open heart. It’s a work of care, courage, and deep humanity.

In a time when so many of us are carrying quiet heartbreak, Insomnia and Seven Steps to Grace offers a place to breathe. It is a reminder that healing often begins in the moments when we allow ourselves to breathe, to listen, and to remember that we are not alone. And in doing so, it reminds us that we are still capable of grace.

Listen to each track at www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nAd_YsQXJerF6ujFA955hfhx8hXpGGI7s.