Those of you who have been following this column so far may have figured out that I’m a big fan of fusion music. Therefore, when I heard two months back that Shakti was breaking its four-decade long video silence and releasing a DVD entitled The Way of Beauty, my excitement knew no bounds. This enthusiasm was doused, however, after seeing that it was a Europe-only release and that it was retailing for € 30! I sighed and moved on with life. 

Just the other day, however, I was making my mandatory fortnightly visit to Rhythm House and lo and behold, the DVD had been released in India, and that too at the highly subsidized price of Rs. 600! Needless to say, I bought it and took it home. 

The DVD is a career retrospective of sorts, with concert footage from a 1976 show at the Montreaux Jazz Festival, a 2000 show in Mumbai and a 2004 show at the Montreaux Jazz Festival. Additional features include an interview with Shakti members past and present, as well as a short soundcheck snippet, presumably from the 2004 show. 

The main feature is three songs from the 2000 Mumbai concert, the audio of which was released as Saturday Night in Bombay. The video, too, was released as a bonus DVD on the Remember Shakti box set a few years back, but this is the first time it is getting wide release. The band for this night seems to be an all-star jam of Indian classical music, from both Hindustani and Carnatic traditions. For this reason, all three songs have a much looser, unstructured feel that comes with a group of musicians who haven’t played with each other too much.

Opener Giriraj Sudha is a fairly traditional Carnatic kriti composed by U. Srinivas, with Shankar Mahadevan on vocals and V. Selvaganesh on kanjira, that fantastically versatile percussion instrument. Srinivas’ playing is very cultured and interesting, albeit extremely linear in conception and execution.

The second track, Shringar, is possibly the weakest on the album. A Shiv Kumar Sharma composition, it remains very santoor-oriented for the most part and never really becomes collaborative at any time. Moreover, Sharma hogs the solos, cutting off McLaughlin at interesting points in at least two places.

Concert closer Bell’Alla is composed by Zakir Hussain, and is interesting in its concept, since it features a double-trio setup, with three string instrument players and three percussionists. Its interesting to see how the same basic instruments take on completely different voices in the hands of different masters, with McLaughlin, Srinivas and Debashish Bhattacharya (Hindustani slide guitar) and Hussain, Selvaganesh and Sivamani filling the slots.  The track builds up tension slowly, with all the musicians willing to share the limelight and feed off each other’s energy. It is especially fun to see McLaughlin in the mid-section, completely at ease in the midst of so many greats, matching konnakol vocal percussion note-for-note as if he were born to it.

The second concert, from the 1974 Montreaux Festival, is shot on extremely grainy video from the worst angles imaginable (45-second shots of the harmonium player’s hands, etc.) but for all that, is extremely interesting as a testament to just how much these musicians have matured over the years. Featuring absurdly young-looking versions of John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain, L. Shankar and T. H. “Vikku” Vinayakaram, the 18-minute track Joy is a frenzied Carnatic piece, with musicality sometimes taking a backseat to showmanship. There are solos galore in the track, and seeing John McLaughlin really digging into raga structures with rock’n’roll aggression is a treat to watch. It’s also interesting to see that Zakir Hussain was much more subdued back in the 1970s, with much fewer head-gestures compared to the present. 

The final concert is from the 1994 Montreaux Festival and sees the 1990s group (McLaughlin, Hussain, Shankar Mahadevan and mandolin wunderkind U. Srinivas) explore uncharted territory, with one of their first explorations of the Hindustani idiom. Shankar Mahadevan brings his myriad influences to the fore in a lovely thumri composition, which is enhanced by the fantastic ambience of the venue, Srinivas’s almost vocal-like playing and McLaughlin’s atmospheric accompaniment. The song lacks some structure, however, with a strange, double-time jazzy interlude that is slightly dissonant and never really fits the song.

The two special features feel like filler, with a career retrospective-cum interview segment that throws up occasional interesting nuggets but for the most part echoes self-congratulatory sentiments. The most interesting bit is the care with which the well-publicised animosity with L. Shankar is skirted throughout the interview. Oddly enough, Hussain continually pronounces Indian words with a Western accent (Shaakti, Shanker and so on) which is quite annoying after a point. The interview could be interesting for newcomers to the band, though.

The soundcheck segment seems a bit lightweight as well, although it is fun to see the band goofing off between takes and showing just how good and well-rehearsed at their instruments they are. Srinivas, especially, impresses with his humility and good-naturedness.

In the final analysis, the DVD is a treasure for aficionados and newcomers to the band alike, revealing new textures and subtexts at each new listening and proving once and for all that no matter how clichéd it might sound, the language of music is universal.