John McLaughlin had already done this to me a few times before with Tony Williams, Miles, and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Molecules taken apart and put back together. It was like on Star Trek where you’d be instantly teleported to another planet. What he witnessed had no precedent.įrisell remembers his reaction: “What was this?! I could not believe what I was seeing, hearing. “Their first album hadn’t come out yet,” Frisell recalls. A small black-and-white television was playing a PBS broadcast of a Shakti performance from Wesleyan. The result was so marvelous.” Guitarist Bill Frisell, who was invited to open for Shakti on their 50th-anniversary tour this year, remembers the first time he heard the group while backstage before a gig in Denver, around 1975. “This was the first time, in my experience,” he explains, “that we had North Indian percussion and South Indian percussion together. Shankar and a South Indian percussionist-initially Ramnad Raghavan-with both Hussain and himself, and the formula for Shakti was born. I’m a Western musician.”) He was inspired to bring together South Indian violinist L. (“I’m not an Indian classical musician,” he points out, “and I don’t want to be an Indian classical musician. Meanwhile, McLaughlin was studying the guitar-like South Indian veena at Wesleyan University, continuing to develop the vocabulary to converse with traditional musicians on his guitar. Within the first 10 seconds, I’m saying, ‘I have to work with this guy somehow.’” When they were done, McLaughlin recalls that Hussain shared the feeling.Īt this time, Mahavishnu Orchestra was on a creative hot streak-their conflagrant debut, The Inner Mounting Flame, was released in 1971, with the similarly scorching Birds of Fire to follow in 1973. He continues, “Zakir Hussain is one of those rare musicians who are just instantly inspiring and are just masterly players. After dinner, we decided to sit in front of the great Ali Akbar Khan and play something.” “Being young and reckless,” the guitarist recalls, “I just happened to have an acoustic guitar and Zakir had a tabla. During a visit with master sarod player Ali Akbar Khan at his school in Northern California where Hussain was teaching, the two had an auspicious impromptu musical meeting. It wasn’t until 1972, though, that McLaughlin and Hussain would play together. “I don’t play flute,” he explains, “but it was really to learn some of the theory, some of the ragas, and to try to understand the rhythmic concepts that they used.” That same year, he met Zakir Hussain, and the two musicians became friends. During this period, he was living in New York and playing with Miles Davis, and he began studying North Indian flute. McLaughlin says he became “enchanted” with Indian classical music in 1969. With the release of This Moment earlier this year, the guitarist is reflecting on the evolution of the ensemble. Shakti has naturally evolved throughout their span, but the inventive, collaborative spirit of the ensemble remains. Together, they are the two remaining original members, and they are now joined by Mahadevan as well as violinist Ganesh Rajagopalan and percussionist Selvaganesh Vinayakram, who is the son of Vikku Vinayakram, the group's percussionist during the '70s. Shakti looks much different than when he first assembled the ensemble as a vehicle to work with master percussionist Hussain. “About 18, 20 months ago,” McLaughlin said this summer, “I wrote to everyone and said, ‘Let’s record something before it’s too late.’” The band continue to stand in a class of their own. F#7 B F# And then I saw her face B F#7 B F# Now I'm a believer B F#7 B F# Not a trace B F#7 B F# Of doubt in my mind B F# B I'm in love (ooooh) F# I'm a believer E I couldn't leave her C#7 If I tried F# C# B7 F# B7 F# What's the use in trying, all you get is pain B F# C# When I wanted sunshine I got rain.McLaughlin has now turned his renewed abilities to his longest running ensemble, Shakti, whose fusion of North and South Indian classical styles together with his intrepid guitar playing broke new ground in the ’70s, helping to create a template for cross-cultural collaborations. DO NOT SHOW ADS F# C# C#7 F# I thought love was only true in fairy tales F# C# C#7 F# F#7 Meant for someone else but not for me B7 F# B7 F# Love was out to get to me, that's the way it seems, B F# C# Disappointment haunted all my dreams F#7 B F# And then I saw her face B F#7 B F# Now I'm a believer B F#7 B F# Not a trace B F#7 B F# Of doubt in my mind B F# B I'm in love (ooooh) F# I'm a believer E I couldn't leave her C#7 If I tried F# C# C#7 F# I thought love was more or less a given thing F# C# C#7 F# F#7 But the more I gave the less I got, oh yeah B7 F# B7 F# What's the use in trying, all you get is pain B F# C# When I wanted sunshine I got rain.
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