Shakti

About

Shakti are a group that play a novel acoustic fusion music which combines Indian music with elements of jazz. It was perhaps the earliest practitioner of the musical genre now known as 'world fusion'.

The original band, formed in the mid-1970s, included the English guitar player John McLaughlin, and Indian musicians L. Shankar (violin), Zakir Hussain (tabla), R. Raghavan (Mridangam) and T. H. "Vikku" Vinayakram (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.
Shakti came together in 1975, after the dissolution of the second incarnation of Mahavishnu Orchestra, and toured fairly extensively during the period 1975-1977; it made only sporadic appearances (with personnel changes) thereafter.
After 1977 the albums which Shankar recorded with Z. Hussain and T. H. "Vikku" Vinayakram 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 Selvaganesh Vinayakram (son of T. H. "Vikku" Vinayakram), mandolin player U. Shrinivas and eventually Shankar Mahadevan.
In 2023, Shakti released their first studio recording in 46 years, the new band including McLaughlin, Hussain, and Vinayakram from the previous incarnation, as well as new members Ganesh Rajagopalan and Shankar Mahadevan.

The word "shakti" means creative intelligence, beauty & power (from Wikipedia).

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