Shakti
John McLaughlin- acoustic guitar
Zakir Hussain- tabla
L. Shankar- violin
T.H. "Vikku" Vinayakram- ghatam
I.S. Murgesh- percussion
Susan & Minta- sruti box
Berklee Performance Center
Boston, Mass. U.S.A.
November 4, 1977
performance quality: A, a great performance in a real nice place for it
recording quality: B+
source: 1st generation audience tape
runtime: 87:54
setlist:
1: tuning 3:39
2: la danse du bonheur 13:14
3: peace of mind 10:12
4: India 18:06
5: kriti 5:31
6: get down and sruti 28:42
7: encore: lotus feet 8:27
lineage: Sony 152 deck, unknown microphones (good ones) >
TDK-SA master cassette (dolby B on) >
my cassette (Maxell XLII-S, copied Nak. to Nak. w/dolby off) >
soundforge 4.5 > FLAC 6 > torrent.
first seeded in 2008, reseeded in 2010 with runtimes added and
a flac > wav > flac (sb's aligned) reconversion to remove the sbe's.
comments:
"Shakti" is a Hindu word meaning sacred force, power or energy, and it's a fitting
name for this outfit, here performing one of their last shows before a very long
interruption of recording albums or touring. It featured some of the greatest
musicians of India, some of their instruments are not very familiar outside of
Indian music, and their music is truly a style of its own.
This original Shakti band of 1975-77 has one official live release which is very
nice, from their July 5, 1975 show at Southampton College, Long Island, N.Y.
and their 2 Montreux concerts of July 6, 76 and July 8, 77 are both available in
a 17 disc boxset of John McLaughlin Live in Montreux (several of his shows, although
the earliest Mahavishnu one is from 1974, not the original one unfortunately).
There were 2 shows this night by Shakti, I don't know which one this is but I
think it is the early show. There may be one flip cut in here, it's very close
to the whole show and it is nice sound quality, I'd say fairly comparable to the
sound of the Boston 76 Shakti show upped on dime by shopkin. That's from the
Handful of Beauty tour, this is near the end of the Natural Elements tour (the
final show was in Phila. 3 days after this one. The whole thing runs about 85
minutes. Since Shakti had to cancel out of their early 77 Berklee concert (with
Oregon!) and played the Orpheum in 76, these 2 shows were Shakti's 1st in the
acoustically delightful Berklee. The wooden walls provide very good sound resonance
for this kind of music and the performance was solid. In my opinion, the finest
acoustic band around, and a show with Oregon would have been a showcase of the 2 best,
in my view. Maybe because that was to be my 1st Shakti concert (and McLaughlin recording)
and Shakti cancelled out of that, I didn't see this show. Wish I had. Even though
they didn't do my favorite song on Natural Elements, Mind Ecology, this was a fine
show and nice sound that any fan of McLaughlin and/or Shakti's very talented crew
would be glad to hear. This was one of the 1st live Shakti shows I ever heard, got
this tape close to 30 years ago just a couple of years after the show, it's still
one of my favorite Shakti shows today.
Do not sell this recording.
Trade freely and losslessly.