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Nomination follows rapturously received 50th Anniversary World Tour featuring original group co-founders John McLaughlin and Zakir Hussain
Shakti, the recently reconvened global fusion trailblazers, have been nominated for the 2024 GRAMMY™ Award for Best Global Music Album for This Moment – the group’s first new studio album in more than 45 years, released on June 30, 2023, on the Abstract Logix label. “After our most successful tour ever of three continents, Shakti gets a GRAMMY nomination for our album This Moment…” reacted to co-founding guitarist and composer John McLaughlin. “We are thrilled and delighted beyond words.”
“Our 2023 world tour celebrated 50 years of love and beauty,” Zakir Hussain adds. “Congratulations to my longtime brother in the music, John McLaughlin, and to our brilliant bandmates Shankar Mahadevan, Selvaganesh Vinayakaram, and Ganesh Rajagopalan.”
Shakti recently concluded their triumphant 27-city 50th Anniversary Tour, which featured 17 U.S. performances with opening sets by longtime admirers Jerry Douglas, Bill Frisell, Béla Fleck, and John Scofield. Highlights of the tour – during which the thrilling cross-cultural musical ideas first broached on This Moment was further explored and expanded – included a performance at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium (captured and released as a limited live stream) and a riveting appearance on NPR’s popular Tiny Desk Concerts program.
Shakti was formed in 1973, as McLaughlin sought deeper musical fulfillment following the success of his immensely influential and successful jazz/rock fusion outfit The Mahavishnu Orchestra. A Greenwich Village music shop owner connected McLaughlin with tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, who had been performing with giants of Hindustani music since he was a child. Their initial informal encounters grew into Shakti, an outfit that transcended the boundaries separating Eastern and Western music via dynamic virtuosity and spiritual openness. Over the succeeding decades, Shakti’s powerful albums and tours established them among the key architects of what is today called “World Music,” inspiring generations of musicians to discard arbitrary borders in search of fruitful musical hybrids. “They were a revelation,” recalls Béla Fleck.
Today’s Shakti, as experienced in concert in 2023 and on This Moment, is composed of McLaughlin (guitar, guitar synth), Hussain (tabla), vocalist Shankar Mahadevan, violinist Ganesh Rajagopalan, and percussionist Selvaganesh Vinayakaram. “Shakti is truly a pioneer in the concept of world fusion,” explains Mahadevan, “where music knows no boundaries and comes together most beautifully from different genres. I am so privileged to be with the greatest maestros – the most evolved musicians that I have ever met.”
“The greatest thing we wanted to celebrate with this album was that it’s considered for Best Global Music Album and not any other category,” said percussionist Selvaganesh Vinayakaram, son of original Shakti member, Carnatic music legend Vikku Vinayakaram, in an interview with Rolling Stone India. “That means this group has that global music value.”
“How apt to have the band who created this genre of ‘World Music’ be nominated for this honor on their 50th anniversary,” reflects Souvik Dutta – who was inspired by Shakti to found Abstract Logix twenty years ago. “They are the ultimate global band – the brotherhood of John and Zakir uniting in music to bring the world together.”
“This Grammy nomination,” concludes Ganesh Rajagopalan, “is a testament to the evergreen quality of the music of Shakti.”
Co-Founders John McLaughlin and Zakir Hussain Lead Current Lineup On First U.S. Tour In 16 Years
With Special Guests Béla Fleck, Bill Frisell and others on select shows
More dates and special guests to be announced at a later date.
Feb 6, 2023: Following word of the Summer 2023 release of This Moment – their first new studio album in 46 years – revolutionary world music ensemble Shakti will continue to discover and explore the musical common ground bridging East and West on an extensive U.S. tour, beginning August 17 in Boston. Born in the mid-1970s out of the deep artistic and spiritual connection bonding British guitarist John McLaughlin and Indian tabla player Zakir Hussain, Shakti’s cross-cultural musical conversation dissolved boundaries with uncommon passion, grace, and dexterity – awakening subsequent generations of musicians to the possibilities of such hybrids in the process. Alongside McLaughlin and Hussain, today’s Shakti features renowned vocalist Shankar Mahadevan, violinist Ganesh Rajagopalan, and percussionist Selvaganesh Vinayakram (son of original Shakti ghatam player T.H. “Vikku” Vinayakram).
Looking ahead to the performances, McLaughlin equates the endeavor to a homecoming of sorts. “Shakti was born in the USA in 1973,” he reflects, “and is also no stranger to American audiences. We’ve played concerts all over the US from coast to coast and north to south – and everywhere we’ve played, we’ve had wonderful audiences.”
Joining Shakti on more than half of the dates will be another performer dedicated to intermingling and transcending genres, Béla Fleck, who will open the performances with a solo set. “Hearing Shakti was a revelation and I started listening right when they started,” Fleck recalls. “Something about Shakti, and also making music with Zakir, was very relatable – perhaps akin to the acoustic guitar and fiddle. But it wasn’t until playing with Zakir and Edgar Meyer [on 2009’s Melody of Rhythm: Triple Concerto & Music for Trio] that I started having more of a sense of what they were up to. Keeping in mind the virtuosic and energetic level of the band, I’ll be attempting to create a solo set that mesmerizes and excites.”
In addition, renowned guitarist Bill Frisell will also be opening the Shakti concerts with solo sets on certain selected dates.
“Béla Fleck and Bill Frisell are both truly fine musicians whom I’ve admired for decades,” McLaughlin says.
With the recording of their new studio album now complete, the members of Shakti now await the opportunity to continue their pan-global dialogue. “In our initial incarnation,” Zakir Hussain concludes, “we did not always have the time nor the means to explore. Now, with the decades of individual musical experiences we all have poured into this, the result reveals an extraordinary depth and level of interaction within this band.”
Preliminary USA Tour Dates
Show Date Venue City, State
8.17.2023 Wang Theatre at Boch Center Boston, MA ***
8.19.2023 The Capitol Theatre Port Chester, NY ***
8.20.2023 Prudential Hall Newark, NJ *
8.22.2023 Keswick Theatre Glenside, PA
8.23.2023 Wolf Trap Vienna, VA *
8.25.2023 Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center Atlanta, GA ***
8.27.2023 Koka Booth Amphitheatre Cary, NC *
8.29.2023 Palace Theatre Columbus, OH *
8.31.2023 Ryman Auditorium Nashville, TN ***
9.3.2023 Ravinia Festival Highland Park, IL *
9.5.2023 Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall Portland, OR ***
9.6.2023 Paramount Theatre Seattle, WA *
9.8.2023 Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts Davis, CA **
9.9.2023 Davies Symphony Hall San Francisco, CA
9.11.2023 Irvine Barclay Theatre Irvine, CA
9.14.2023 Hill Auditorium Ann Arbor, MI *
9.16.2023 H-E-B Center Austin, TX *
*with Bela Fleck
**With Bill Frisell
***TBD
Fresh off a tour with the 2018 Grammy award-winning guitarist John McLaughlin, Souvik Dutta, CEO of Abstract Logix, gives us a behind the scenes look at the jazz legend’s historic “American Farewell Tour” & we discuss Steem-powered music.
You can read the piece here.
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