Shakti: 50th Anniversary Tour
September 8 @ 7:30 PM PDT
An unprecedented, transcontinental collaboration, Shakti united eastern and western musicians, and in the process forged the template for what is now called “world music.” From the West came virtuoso British guitarist John McLaughlin, who re-wired jazz via his work with Miles Davis and the Tony Williams Lifetime. From the East came visionary tabla player Zakir Hussain, who had accompanied legendary Hindustani musicians from adolescence. A music shop owner in New York City’s Greenwich Village connected the two in 1969, sowing the seeds of what was to become Shakti. “There wasn’t a first meeting,” Hussain recalls today. “It felt like a reunion of long-lost brothers…”