Szavanna_blog

Though I normally explore music from Africa on this blog – here is an amazing Shakti piece – really spectacular :

About Shakti from the Wikipedia:

Shakti was a group which played a novel acoustic fusion music which combined Indian music with elements of jazz; it was perhaps the earliest practitioner of the musical genre world fusion.

Its leading member was the English guitar player John McLaughlin, but it also featured the Indian violin player L. Shankar. It also included Zakir Hussain (on tabla), and R. Raghavan (on the Mridangam) and T. H. Vinayakaram (on Ghatam).

In addition to fusing Western and Indian music, Shakti also represented a fusion of the Hindustani and Carnatic music traditions, since Hussain is from the North, but the other Indian members are from the South.

It came together in the early 1970s, and toured fairly extensively during the period 1975-1977; it made only sporadic appearances (with personnel changes) thereafter.

Its eponymous first album, Shakti, has had a lasting following.

After 1977 the albums which L. Shankar recorded with Z. Hussain and T. H. Vinayakaram stayed close to the music made popular by Shakti.

Some twenty years later McLaughlin and Hussain put together another band with the same concept, called Remember Shakti, including V. Selvaganesh, mandolin player U. Shrinivas and eventually Shankar Mahadevan.

Ma no pa with echo’s of Lyla’s dance

• John McLaughlin (guitar)
• Zakir Hussain (tabla)
• V Selvaganesh (percussion)
• U Shrinivas (mandolin)

John Mclaughlin: Remember Shakti: Ma No Pa