Lakshminarayana Shankar, a violinist, singer, and composer, teaches Indian Classical styles by incorporating them into Western musics. He has found a comfortable style that melds and combines classical Indian influences and jazz devices. He moved to America in 1969, eventually earned a doctorate in ethnomusicology at Wesleyan, where he began meeting jazz musicians like Ornette Coleman, Jimmy Garrison, and John McLaughlin while working as a teaching assistant and concert master of the university chamber orchestra. He studied with McLaughlin in 1973, and two years later, they co-founded the group Shakti, which was active until 1978. During the '80s and beyond, Shankar recorded periodically as a leader, doing both jazz-based material and Indian classical music. He's also worked with rockers Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Frank Zappa, Talking Heads, Bruce Springsteen, and Lou Reed.