Shakti
Shakti with John McLaughlin

A mad dash in a Bombay suburb...one of those Bollywood scenes, where the runner throws everything in the air, falls, gets up, and resumes sprinting breathlessly, fleeing from an undefined pursuer. That's how it opens with "Joy" on this album...or maybe not?

I open my eyes, look at the cover: we're only in the New Hampshire, it's 1975.

John McLaughlin is playing live with Indian musicians; in front is the South Hampton college audience, but perhaps I only realize it from the applause captured by the microphones during the moments of maximum violin virtuosity by L. Shankar, punctuated by tabla, ghatam, and mridangam...

McLaughlin has done it again: after contributing to the first spark of that fire called jazz fusion with the Mahavishnu Orchestra, now he's there, seated cross-legged on the ground like in a harem, but holding an acoustic guitar. He is, in fact, inventing what future generations will label as World Music.

It’s “only” three songs, but a whole 52 minutes to write a piece of music history. And it’s no coincidence that beside him are musicians destined for a career of considerable respect: a few years later, Hussain would find himself composing the soundtrack for films like Apocalypse Now and Little Buddha by our Bertolucci; Shankar's signature appears on the OST of, among others, The Passion by Mel Gibson.

With the other two tracks, the atmospheres change significantly: despite the stunning and swirling Arabic scales painted by McLaughlin’s fingers and the serpentine notes of violin in the background, there is the feeling of floating in a giant bubble, hovering over deserts and stretches of India, or perhaps Tibet, who knows...not even the relentless percussion could break it, and so even the last 29-minute track doesn't tire for its length. Without even knowing it, we find ourselves in an almost bluesy atmosphere, where McLaughlin’s perfectly bent note tries to catapult us into a western movie.

Dedicate some of your time and listen to this album, let yourself be carried away by the notes, and think about what a damn genius McLaughlin must be to experiment with musical projects like this back then, but in the end, for him, it was a natural landing after the experience with Cobham and friends, although probably unaware of the musical genre he would launch shortly after...