The word fusion often conjures up images of well-meaning Westerners poaching and butchering musics from outside their cultural sphere or Jazz artists looking to throw everything into the mix including country pedal steel to look sophisticated and post-ironic. Most of the time that image is dead on. In the case of Shakti and Tabla Beat Science some of that is true but more often than not it is an experiment that works in that both groups manage to successfully blend two different musical traditions and in the case of the latter use those traditions as a bridge to another.
I first stumbled on Shakti’s live album about fourteen years ago as a freshman in college and maybe it was the environment where everything felt new and imbued with a sense of idealism but the album gripped me. With a scant three tracks sprawled over an epic fifty plus minutes it blended trance like percussion with perfumed violin passages and numbingly fast guitar parts. It was exotic and though, at the time had been released seventeen years earlier, it sounded so different as to surpass the stage of novelty and become something all together transformative.
Hyperbole aside, the album remains in my collection and finds itself pulled out at least several times a year which in of itself is a testament to its longevity. What drew me in was how McLaughlin approached the joining of his art with that of Shankar, Raghavan and Vinayakram, and Hussain. Rather than trying to force the music of Southern India into the Western Canon he looks to find ways to incorporate himself with the result being a blissed out journey through frantic and cracked ragas. It is a journey of equals as McLaughlin performs with the ensemble as an equal, trading licks with Shankar and as Hussain, Raghavan, and Vinayakram thunder in the background. By approaching the music in this manner the group has created a work that does not find itself sounding dated, a problem that plagues most fusion music.
Tabla Beat Science is an evolution of Shakti’s work in that the compositions are not designed to force particular instruments into fitting a particular ideal rather it seeks to create another layer to their respective traditions. Live in San Francisco at Stern Grove sees the collective of Bill Laswell, Talvin Singh, Karsh Kale, Trilok Gurtu, Ustad Sultan Khan, and Zakir Hussain, the bridge between the two groups, branch out into a soundscape dominated by Hindustani music, Hip Hop, Drum and Bass, Dub, and Trance.
Laswell’s influence can be distinctly felt as the performance is a thick stew of sound where fragments of traditional structure float about occasionally only to be submerged under waves of rhythms and melodies. Where McLaughlin worked to insert himself into the music Tabla Beat Science appears to be trying to create a new language where the voices of the tabla are comfortable alongside a turntablist and aggressive breakbeats, though much of the groundwork for this was laid by Kale and Singh as individually each has extended dance music further into traditional South Indian music. The results are nothing short of transformative as the group captures the energy of Shatki’s recording some twenty-four years earlier and amplifies it to a joyful apex.
While both Shakti and Tabla Beat Science can be filed under fusion they restore more than a modicum of respect to the genre. If you often find yourself disregarding boundaries or feel most rewarded when you listen to music that takes chances these two albums are must haves that will not disappoint.
So you might be asking, “WTF? Jazz? With a World edge? What, are you getting a Masters in Social Work?” Fair enough. Not all my listening falls into the categories of four-on-the-floor or three out of tune chords and although it is not rock, house, or punk ArcoLuz manages to growl, sing, and sway as Renaud Garcia-Fons demonstrates impeccable technique and lyricism double-bass. His work, especially on this album with its minimal setting, is worth sitting up and taking notice of.
Loka’s Fire Shepherds is about texture, mood, and atmosphere. Playing alternately like the backing track for dense Jazz-Fusion album and a Seventies action flick, bongo’s, organ, and buzzing double bass never sounded so good. Over at 
There are times where I take a chance on an album by the cover artwork and how catchy the name sounds. This is one of those times where the words Machine and Jazz were brought together and piqued my interest. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I would be in for, maybe some musique concrète and if that was the case I would be quickly making a lateral pass to Scott to continue his education and avoid sustaining any anguish by furthering mine. However, the mustachioed man on the cover lead me to think that this album might be something entirely different, possibly something weird and wonderful like The Pinker Tones.