Shakti | The moment of rhythm Premium

Shakti, the transcontinental Indo-jazz band, celebrates their 50th anniversary with a Grammy-winning album and a unique fusion sound.

A few weeks ahead of their 50th-anniversary tour’s U.S. leg in 2023, transcontinental Indo-jazz band Shakti made a pit stop at NPR for their popular ‘tiny desk concert’.

What followed was simply a lesson on ingenious spontaneity that can only be cultivated through years and layers of interaction. British jazz guitarist John McLaughlin’s effortless strums were in conversation with the impeccable rhythm of tabla exponent Zakir Hussain, as vocalist Shankar Mahadevan seamlessly joined, while violinist Ganesh Rajagopalan and kanjira artiste V. Selvaganesh caught up with vigour.

Today, snippets from this infectious musical dialogue flood social media, as the country revels in the 50-year-old ensemble’s win for the Best Global Music Album at the 66th Grammy Awards for their pandemic creation, This Moment.

The now-quintet took shape in 1973 as a two-person aspiration towards melding the musical sensibilities of the East and the West. Zakir Hussain, who was then already touring with his father and tabla maestro Ustad Alla Rakha, roped in the British guitarist with a penchant for Indian music and spirituality, John McLaughlin, to actualise this shared dream. They were introduced to each other by a music shop owner in Greenwich Village, New York. The latter’s fusion group Mahavishnu Orchestra — a jazz band with an Indian name — had already disbanded by then. Violinist L. Shankar and ghatam exponent ‘Vikku’ Vinayakram joined in 1974 to make Shakti a quartet with a unique sound.

Hussain’s incomparable command over rhythm met McLaughlin’s curiosity to learn the alleyways of Indian classical music despite his well-known prowess over jazz. Vikku’s ghatam and Shankar’s violin added an unexpected but fitting Carnatic flavour.

They found common ground in the concept of improvisation, and the quest for a global sound, right in the heels of Pandit Ravi Shankar and The Beatles, whose experiments had already put Indian music on the global map by then.

In an interview with The Hindu in 2023, Vikku Vinayakram fondly recalled, “Rhythm has been our only mode of communication since we first met.” A widely shared video from last year shows the 80-year-old conversing with his former bandmates Hussain and McLaughlin through a delightful ‘konnakol’ (a rhythmic rendition of Carnatic percussion syllables). While the ‘East meets West’ conversation was very much at the core of Shakti’s sound, the band also celebrated the differences and similarities of classical music from the north and south of India. Prior to this, there was very little collaboration between north and south Indian musicians.