Remember Shakti: Saturday Night in Bombay
Guitarist McLaughlin and tabla drummer Zakir Hussain first joined together as Shakti in 1975 to fuse together the rhythmic and improvisational energies of jazz and the classical music of northern India. Regrouping in the late '90s, the two have since raised the level of the synthesis significantly in a quartet with the extraordinary young mandolin player U. Shrinivas and percussionist V. Selvaganesh. These recordings come from December 2000, when Remember Shakti was playing concerts in Bombay at the end of a world tour. It's clearly the occasion for celebration, with the group expanding to include several guests, but it's distinguished by the same quality that has graced their live performances and the previous CD,The Believer: a hypnotic luminosity that enfolds flights of extraordinary virtuosity and sustained dialogue into a tranquil whole. That mood is further enhanced here by the setting, the layered polyrhythms of multiple drummers, and the singing of Shankar Mahadevan. The wedding of East and West is most apparent in McLaughlin's sprightly "Luki," with the guitarist's harmonies specifically invoking jazz. "Shringar," nearly 27 minutes long, is played by a quartet, with its composer Shiv Kumar Sharma on santur, a Persian zither. Beginning in a sustained meditative stillness, it eventually builds to one of McLaughlin's most brilliant  solos. As they have in the past, McLaughlin and Hussain again give new meaning and possibilities to the idea of "world music."--Stuart Broomer