Zakir Hussain - A Life in Music

He was the eldest son of Ustad Allarakha. Ustad Zakir Hussain was not just a tabla player like his father but introduced the global audience to his form of wizardry. How many other tabla players can compose, produce music, be a creative percussionist and a film actor. He was a prodigy whose father whispered the rhythms of the tabla when he was two days old.

Even as a twelve year old he was stunning the audience with his fingers that can best be described as fast as a hummingbird’s wings. He had played with Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, and Shivkumar Sharma and global musicians like John McLaughlin, George Harrison and jammed with The Grateful Dead. By the time he was in his teens people had stopped referring to him as Ustad Allarakha’s son.

In 1973, he co-founded Shakti with guitarist John McLaughlin. Shakti had brought a new sound to the world. Zakir Hussain on the tabla, John McLaughlin on the guitar, L Shankar on the violin and “Vikku” Vinayakram played the Ghatam. In 1979 they performed at Rendezvous, the festival of IIT Delhi. If you want to get a glimpse of what I experienced, you can watch this performance from Montreux Jazz Festival in 1976. In 1979, they sounded even better I swear.

I was in the audience in 1992-93 in Jamshedpur when Ustad Allarakha played with Zakir Hussain, When I was in New York in 2001, I heard Shakti perform. Vikku Vinayakram’s son had replaced his dad and U Srinivas (popularly known as Mandolin Srinivas) had joined. The music was just as good.

Don’t miss this Tiny Desk Concert recorded in 2023 - Shakti has a new line up. Shankar Mahadevan is on vocals. John McLaughlin and Zakir Hussain maintain the DNA of Shakti.

This would have been in the summer of 1983, I was traveling from Delhi to Mumbai by train. It was an AC 2 tier compartment. My co-passenger was Dr Anup Ghoshal who had just recorded "Tujhse Naraaz Nahi Zindagi, Hairaan Hoon Main” ('I am amazed at life, not angry') - a song that got the Filmfare award to Gulzar for his lyrics and to RD for the music (I wish Anup Ghoshal had won the award for his singing but that was not to be. One stop later, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia and Ustad Zakir Hussain joined us. It was my lucky day. It was hard not to be starstruck.

Zakir Hussain already had a cult following. He would go on to compose the world’s first concerto for tabla. Listen to him talk about it ever so casually.

His biographer Nasreen Munni Kabir says about him, “He remains a man of tehzeeb and humility. Zakir has broken many records and won many awards, but is always the first to credit the ‘Holy Trinity’ of tabla players, Pandit Samta Prasad, Pandit Kishan Maharaj and his father, for their groundbreaking contribution to music, and for the fact that they elevated the very status of the tabla in the first place.”

His first concert, in his own words

Nasreen Munni Kabir: As far as performing in public goes, I read on the Net that you were five when you performed on the stage for the first time.

Zakir Hussain: I don’t remember it very clearly. Did I show you a photograph of me on stage? I looked more like seven or eight. It was one of those long six-hour concerts, and I believe at some point my father may have needed to go to the loo or something, and so he asked me to take over because the concert was still in progress. That’s how it happened. I just took over and started playing. I think the audience was a little dazed, but the maestro who was playing was totally okay.

Nasreen Munni Kabir: The maestro?

Zakir Hussain: Ali Akbar Khansahib.

He won the Padma Shree, the Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan. He is the only Indian to have won four Grammy awards. In 2024, he made history at the 66th Grammy Awards by becoming the first Indian to win three trophies in a single night. There would have been many more, but for his passing away on 15 Dec 2024.

Read what BBC had to say about Zakir Hussain: Remembering the man who became Indian music's global ambassador

Watch: Zakir Hussain and his wife Toni on Simi Grewal’s show