Video of the Day: Shakti’s This Moment nominated for Best Global Music Album Grammy Award – watch ‘Bending the Rules’ - Live from The Ryman

Shakti, the recently reconvened global fusion trailblazers, have been nominated for 2024 Grammy Award for Best Global Music Album for This Moment – the group’s first new studio album in more than 45 years, released on June 30, 2023, on the Abstract Logix label. “After our most successful tour ever of three continents, Shakti gets a GRAMMY Nomination for our album This Moment…” reacted co-founding guitarist and composer John McLaughlin, “We are thrilled and delighted beyond words.”

“Our 2023 world tour celebrated 50 years of love and beauty,” Zakir Hussain adds. “Congratulations to my longtime brother in the music, John McLaughlin, and to our brilliant bandmates Shankar Mahadevan, Selvaganesh Vinayakram, and Ganesh Rajagopalan.”

Shakti recently concluded their triumphant 27-city 50th Anniversary Tour, which featured 17 U.S. performances during which the band was supported by opening sets by longtime admirers Jerry Douglas, Bill Frisell, Béla Fleck, and John Scofield. Highlights of the tour – during which the thrilling cross-cultural musical ideas first broached on This Moment was further explored and expanded – included a performance at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium (captured and released as a limited live stream) and a riveting appearance on NPR’s popular Tiny Desk Concerts program.

Shakti was formed in 1973, as McLaughlin sought deeper musical fulfillment following the success of his immensely influential and successful jazz/rock fusion outfit The Mahavishnu Orchestra. Over the succeeding decades, Shakti’s powerful albums and tours established them among the key architects of what is today called “World Music.” “They were a revelation,” recalls Béla Fleck.

Today’s Shakti, as experienced in concert in 2023, and on This Moment, is composed of McLaughlin (guitar, guitar synth), Hussain (tabla), vocalist Shankar Mahadevan, violinist Ganesh Rajagopalan, and percussionist Selvaganesh Vinayakram.“How apt to have the band who created this genre of ‘World Music’ be nominated for this honor on their 50th anniversary,” reflects Souvik Dutta – who was inspired by Shakti to found Abstract Logix twenty years ago. “They are the ultimate global band – the brotherhood of John and Zakir uniting in music, to bring the world together.”

The 66th Grammy Awards will be held on Sunday 4 February 2024 and will broadcast on CBS and Paramount – Shakti’s This Moment was also voted No.5 in Jazzwise’s prestigious Albums of the Year 2023 Critics Poll – see the full results here