World Fusion

World fusion is the 1970s-born practice of building jazz, rock and electronic frameworks around instruments and repertoires from outside the West: Indian ragas over electric bass, West African percussion inside jazz quintets, Celtic melodies on synthesizers. It grew from the counterculture's curiosity — *Shakti*'s acoustic Indo-jazz, *Oregon*'s chamber improvisations, *Codona*'s #ECM# ritualism — and matured into a global industry of collaborations such as *Afro Celt Sound System*, *Talvin Singh* and *Nitin Sawhney*. Purists argue the term flattens its sources, but at its best world fusion is a genuine conversation between musical systems rather than decoration.