I take pleasure in initiating this discussion on the world's first North-South(in the Indian classical music context) fusion band and purely acoustic in nature during the time of it's inception. The founder members ->
1. Dr.L.Shankar on the violin.
2. John McLaughlin on the acoustic guitar.
3. Ustaad Zakir Hussain on the tabla and Kanjira and Konnakkol.
4. Maestro T.H. Vikku Vinayakaram on the Ghatam, Mridangam and Konakkol.
The present day avatar of this band is Remember Shakti. It's members ->
1. John McLaughlin on the electric guitar.
2. Mandolin U.Srinivas on the mandolin.
3. Shankar Mahadevan as guest artist on the vocals.
4. Ustaad Zakir Hussain on the tabla and world-percussion.
5. Maestro Selvaganesh on the Kanjira, Mridangam, Ghatam and other forms of percussion.
The Shakti movement has had the reputation of presenting technically brilliant and mind blowing music to it's audiences from the time of it's inception. I would point out that certain other bands exist today which are heavily influenced by Shakti. They are Mynta, Trilok Gurtu & his band of musicians(no single band as such
), Silk. Many modern Indo-Jazz fusion exercises use Shakti as a benchmark, an unattainable one though.