Track Listing

1. La Danse Du Bonheur
2. Lady L
3. India
4. Kriti
5. Isis
6. Two Sisters

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33045 in Music
• Released on: 1999-05-03
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Shakti represents one of the peaks in East-West collaboration. Between 1975 and 1977 the quartet set new standards in multi-faith, multicultural instrumental fusion music. A Handful of Beauty is the efflorescence of Shakti's trinity of Sony albums. The Shakti concept in Hinduism embodies feminine creativity and power (and did it millennia before "girl power" wanly shone forth). Shakti by 1976 had settled into the decade's most satisfying line-up of tabla nawaaz (maestro) Zakir Hussain (son of Ravi Shankar's long-standing tabla player Alla Rakha, the player who converted more people to the intricacies of Hindustani rhythm than anyone in history), the guitarist John McLaughlin (former Miles Davis alumnus and leader of the Mahavishnu Orchestra), the Karnatic (South Indian classical) violinist L. Shankar and the Karnatic percussionist T.H. Vinayakram. Together they bind together three improvisation-based traditions, respectively Hindustani, jazz and Karnatic music with the natural accent on melodic and rhythmic extemporisation. Harmony plays a less than minor role in this music. This glory's pieces radiate acoustical energy and vitality, scotching any suspicions of heresy arising from the appropriateness of their name. --Ken Hunt

Customer Reviews

Shakti, Handful of Beauty
I first heart this album on the Friday Road Show with Tommy Vance in the late 70's, It just flew me away, the music envelopes you, enters you, it's energy and power is just spellbinding.

You may not have heard of this album, but it really is one of the best albums ever produced with an excellent sound recording and mix - you feel you are there. There is one 15 minute tabla solo (Isis) that is so relaxing and calming yet so vibrant and energising, this album with leave you overwhelmed with it's beauty, you will not be disapointed if you buy it.

The most beautiful music in the known universe
I too bought this on vinyl when it was released. I no longer listen to Genesis, Thin Lizzy, Lynyrd Skynyrd or Steve Hillage, but 30 odd years later, this one, I still do.

Tranquililty, astonishing virtuosity, hypnotic rhythm, introspection, joyfulness, timelessness, peace. You sort of immerse yourself in it, rather than listen to it.

I have bought literally thousands of LP's/CD's down the years. This is one of the two or three greatest. You should buy a copy.

The finest improvisatory music made by anyone, anywhere.
Bought it when I was 15 and it remains in my top two or three albums more than thirty years later, despite having bought an awful lot of music, of all kinds since. And for improvisation it remains unsurpassed. Never have passion and precision, power, beauty and blistering intelligence been so perfectly and consistently blended, and this for each of the four players concerned. I wept the day I heard this band had split, and although they all went on to do often great and always interesting things, for me this was their finest hour.

At this time McLaughlin used a specially made acoustic guitar that involved an additional set of sympathetic strings, somewhat along the lines of a sitar. It sounded like no other acoustic guitar before or since, and was I astonished to read years later that it eventually just got 'lost'. With this guitar McLaughlin played with a fire and venom that he's never, in my humble opinion, quite got back since those days. The guitar also facilitated outrageous bending, again more like a sitar, that allowed him to throw a single note all over the place. Of course there was speed, but it was the actual notes he was playing that made it so electrifying. He wasn't just blindly shooting up and down scales, but rather he was executing the most sophisticated phrasing that truly captured a unique syncretism of east-west language. It was also just how hard, and indeed softly, he was hitting the notes, each one ringing out with absolute clarity. I've loyally followed John's work over the intervening years and allthough it has remained profoundly intelligent, it has become more urbane and airy. The music of a contented man rather than one who was reaching for the furthest attainable excellence.

The violinist L Shankar is another world musical prodigy. He too was at a pinnacle of excellence and exploration in his career at this stage. At his best he was clearly among the finest violinists in the world, made most apparent on his later solo album Pancha Nadai Pallavi.

Zakhir Hussain is always astonishing, defying the laws of physics with the speed of his playing and endlessly rhythmically inventive. He is complemented by Vikku Vinayakram whose Gatam (claypot) playing has just got to hurt.