Zakir Hussain, the great tabla player and the global brand ambassador of Indian classical music who passed away at the age of 73, has gifted a timeless rhythm that will continue to influence musicians in the future.
He was a child genius and worked with Indian classical masters like Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan and Shivkumar Sharma, world musicians like John McLaughlin and George Harrison.
Lucky number nine, March, nineteen fifty one, he was born in Mahim, Mumbai, the first born of Ustad Allarakha, one of the greatest of all time tabla players, a pair of traditional Indian hand played drums.
The story of this boy who started as a child and turned into a world-renowned percussionist was a perfect example of how to be traditional and at the same time innovative.
Hussain was born in rhythm and his life was all about rhythm.
Tabla was his first vocabulary, his first “words” if you will. He was performing worldwide when he was only twelve years old and during his teenage, he was touring with Pandit Ravi Shankar and Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.
Born in the Hindustani classical tradition, Hussain had a restless spirit that made him experiment with other forms and thus had path breaking associations all over the world.
In 1973 he formed SHAKTI with guitarist John McLaughlin which was a combination of Indian classical music with jazz and world music thus giving birth to a new music genre.
The group Shakti changed over five decades and included such stars as violinist L Shankar, percussionist Vikku Vinayakram, and mandolin virtuoso U Srinivas.
Their first studio album in 46 years, This Moment, triumphed in the category of Best Global Music Album in 2024, which was a fitting end to the 50th-anniversary tour. Hussain was the key to Shakti and to the understanding of Indian rhythms by the world at large through the creative use of the tabla.
Zakir Hussain had done much more than playing with Shakti.
He was a member of Planet Drum and Global Drum Project with Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart which yielded Grammy Awards in 1991 and 2008.
He collaborated with Béla Fleck, the banjo virtuoso, and Edgar Meyer on As We Speak (2024), which won the Grammy and confirmed him as a champion of the crossover. He also worked with musicians ranging from classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma to Beatle George Harrison, Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison and drummer Billy Cobham to take Indian classical music to the world.
His projects like Tabla Beat Science, which is a blend of Indian classical music with electronic/world music, and compositions for orchestras such as Peshkar for the Symphony Orchestra of India demonstrated his desire to explore new frontiers with the respect he has for his tradition.
‘The moment you think you are a maestro, you are actually creating a distance from the others,’ Hussain said to Rolling Stone India recently this year. ‘It’s important that you are in a group but not in control.’
This philosophy made him not only a great artist but also a learner and a teacher even in his lifetime.
The extravagant and fast and accurate movements that Hussain used to perform received much appreciation from the public.
The New York Times, in its review of a jazz concert at Carnegie Hall in 2009 said that his artistry was ‘an impish strain of virtuosity’.
He is a technical monster but an inventive clown, a man obsessed with the joy of play. Thus he does not often appear oppressive even when the movement of his hands is as fast as the wings of a humming bird.
He has received as many awards as the songs he produced.
Hussain was also awarded Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri and National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellow in USA. He performed before people at places like Carnegie Hall and worked with jazz greats, Western classical ensembles and Carnatic music gurus.
In fact, even though Hussain is an internationally renowned artist, he was always very linked to his Indian background. The early years in a small house – large tenements – in Mahim formed his character.
In the first three and a half years of my life, all of us were sharing one room without a toilet. There was no other option but to use the common toilets,” said Hussain to Nasreen Munni Kabir.
In his personal life Hussain was a bookworm and a great fan of Isaac Asimov’s science fiction series Foundation. He was a great poetry lover, a cricket and tennis fan, and he had Roger Federer as his idol. He also had an interest in the lives of musicians such as Ravi Shankar and Miles Davis, which shows his need for stories that were beyond the limits. Hussain would also later say that his TV advert for a popular tea brand – Taj Mahal – “made me famous in India”.
Hussain’s death is a big loss but has brought an era to a close in world music. Kabir, who chronicled his life, aptly captured his essence: It’s important to note that Zakir’s playing and the very intense approach he had to his music made him a phenomenon.
For Hussain music was not just a profession but a mission – a means of reaching out to people, their heritage and civilizations of the world.
Hussain was as busy as ever in his last years, performing, teaching, and writing music.
I am a student and I need to learn something new, it motivates me. The chance to get inspired by all the young musicians out there helps me revamp myself. There is no sign of tiredness due to age, he said last year.
