You Know You Know and Joy (live version by Shakti)

Mahavishnu Orchestra: John McLaughlin (electric guitar), Jerry Goodman (violin), Jan Hammer (keyboards, organ), Rick Laird (bass) and Billy Cobham (drums, percussion). From the album The Inner Mounting Flame (1971).

In 1975 McLaughlin decided to continue exploring oriental mysticism and created the band Shakti, which means “power, creative intelligence and beauty”, with himself on acoustic guitar and Indian musicians L. Shankar on violin, Ramnad Raghavan on mridangam (long drum which can be played on both sides), TH Vinayakram on mridangam and ghatam (percussion instrument consisting of a clay pot) and Zakir Hussain on tabla (two small drums). They played Hindu music with jazz elements and performed extensively for two years.

Their first album was Shakti with John McLaughlin (1975) in which McLaughlin plays the first track at a breathtaking speed while his peers follow him with great dexterity and discipline; in the second tune they offer a meditative atmosphere and the third is a long raga in which the guitarist uses his accelerated western style, but also leaves room for the other instrumentalists to demonstrate their experience. The raga is a melodic structure in which a composition and an improvisation are presented based on a series of 5 to 7 notes and specific rhythmic patterns. In 1976 they recorded A Handful of Beauty without Raghavan playing in a subtle and integrated way, and providing a more lyrical version of their East-West fusion; and finally they released Natural Elements (1977), in which they also play in a relaxed way. With this group, McLaughlin introduced Indian music to jazz fans.

In 1976 he collaborated in School Days by double bassist and electric bassist Stanley Clarke, who founded the jazz fusion band Return to Forever in 1973 with pianist and keyboardist Chick Corea. In the late 1970s McLaughlin resumed his solo career and published Electric Guitarrist (1978), in which he returns to jazz fusion, and Electric Dreams (1979), the only album with The One Truth Band, in which L. Shankar played again violin and Tony Williams drums. Then he toured as a duet with the French gypsy jazz guitarist Christian Escoudé. Gypsy jazz is a swing trend initiated by French gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt in Paris in the 1930s.

Shakti: John McLaughlin (guitar), L. Shankar (violin), Zakir Hussain (tabla), T.H. “Vikku” Vinayakram (ghatam) and Ramnad Raghavan (Mridangam). Live Montreux 1976.