John McLaughlin/Remember Shakti: The Way of Beauty

John Kelman

Senior Editor since 2004

With the realization that there will always be more music coming at him than he can keep up with, John wonders why anyone would think that jazz is dead or dying.

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Published: October 5, 2006

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John McLaughlin/Remember Shakti
The Way of Beauty
Universal Music France
2006

Over the past decade guitarist John McLaughlin, other than working on his Industrial Zen (Verve, 2006) project, has devoted much of his time to a new version of his ground-breaking mid-'70s Indo-Jazz fusion group Shakti. For those unable to attend a Remember Shakti concert in recent years the only way to experience the group in performance was by purchasing Verve's 2002 Remember Shakti box set. In addition to the reformed group's three CD releases the box included a concert DVD culled from the same two nights used for Saturday Night in Bombay (Verve, 2001). The Way of Beauty makes that footage—and a whole lot more—available as a single DVD release and is exciting news for anyone who has followed this remarkable group but didn't want to shell out for the expensive box.

When McLaughlin, at the height of Mahavishnu Orchestra fame in the mid-1970s, found himself with a group virtually imploding after two studio records and one live album, his next step was a move that, at the time, appeared to be completely out of left field. Eschewing electric instruments entirely, he teamed up with a trio of Indian musicians to form Shakti, one of the first world music groups and certainly the first group to bridge not only the gap between Eastern and Western musical concepts, but North and South Indian music as well. While the group recorded three albums between 1975 and 1977, and live performances were always met with great enthusiasm, the record buying public had a difficult time reconciling themselves with this curious hybrid. Certainly the record company had no idea what to do with it. And so, while Shakti represented a fearless exploration that broke down all kinds of musical boundaries, the group never achieved the degree of critical and popular acclaim it deserved.

Probably the most important result of the group's relatively short existence was the musical and personal bond formed between the British guitarist and tablaist Zakir Hussain. Shakti may have disappeared in the late 1970s, but McLaughlin and Hussain would continue to cross paths over the years, most notably on Hussain's superb album, Making Music (ECM, 1987). It was also on that album that McLaughlin was introduced to Indian flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia, and it was that trio, along with original Shakti percussionist T.H. Vinayakram, who would reconvene in the mid-1990s, under the name Remember Shakti.

While Chaurasia and Vinayakram would leave after the tour that resulted in the double live Remember Shakti (Verve, 1999), the group continued on with new percussionist V. Selvagahesh and the remarkable U. Shrinivas on mandolin. This quartet would release The Believer (Verve, 2000) and, finally, Saturday Night in Bombay, featuring the core quartet with a bevy of guest musicians from India. While the group, with added vocalist Shenkar Mahadevan (who first appeared as a guest on Saturday Night in Bombay), continues to tour sporadically, there's been no new material from the group.

Until now. The Way of Beauty is a sweeping three-hour DVD that, along with the concert footage from the Remember Shakti box, includes an informative one-hour documentary featuring substantial interview footage with the current members of the group. Equally revealing are three bonus features—70 minutes of additional concert and sound check footage from both the current group and the original Shakti from 1976.

What stands out the most about the documentary is just how deep the relationship is between Hussain and McLaughlin. They refer to each other as "soul mates, a term normally associated with romantic relationships, and watching them play together, the connection is palpable. This may be a different kind of love, but it's love nevertheless. While both musicians, and the others who play with them in Remember Shakti, are stunning virtuosos, what's equally clear in both the interview and concert footage is the respect and open-mindedness everyone shares. Remember Shakti's music often revolves around long improvisations that are cued out by frighteningly fast musical figures seeming to come out of nowhere, yet this is a group of remarkable synchronicity. There's an uncanny sense of telepathy at play, and the kind of serendipity that occurs only when musicians are playing with ears wide open along with a rich command of musical language that transcends genre stereotyping.

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