Remember Shakti: The Believer
The band Shakti, together from 1975 to 1977, was an extension of John McLaughlin's longstanding interest in Indian music, integrating his guitar with Indian instruments and exploring the myriad tonal and rhythmic complexities of the subcontinent. After re-forming in 1997 as Remember Shakti, the group went through some personnel shifts before reaching the form heard here on a 1999 European tour. Along with McLaughlin's original partnerZakir Hussainon tabla drums, the quartet includes V. Selvaganesh on percussion and U. Shrinivas on mandolin. The combination is heady, pairing two string players and two hand drummers in improvised dialogues that are often carried on at superhuman speed. Even the Indian elements are a synthesis. Hussain's tablas are the drums of choice in Northern Indian music, while Selvaganesh plays instruments of the South--a clay pot called a ghatam, the two-headed mridangam that functions like tablas, and kanjira, a small tambourine that has somehow become a virtuoso instrument.  Shrinivas's electric mandolin is a Southern adaptation that in practice resembles a soprano slide guitar or a high-pitched vina. McLaughlin adds Western harmonic elements into the mix, blending chords with pitch-shifting Indian scales to create some very distinctive music.There's tremendous diversity in the 77-minute CD, from the serene reflections of McLaughlin's "Lotus Feet" to playful exchanges to flights of transcendent and transcontinental virtuosity, like Shrinivas's solo on his own "Maya."  There's a natural affinity between the improvisational languages of Indian music and jazz, and the flexibility here is such that McLaughlin can even suggest some roadhouse roots on Hussain's "Ma No Pa."--Stuart Broomer