Explained: The transcendental legacy of Ustad Zakir Hussain

Taking tabla to new heights

To truly appreciate Hussain’s legacy, one first needs to look at the history of the instrument he is synonymous with. In his own words, “[the] tabla is one of the youngest instruments in the field of North Indian Classical music”. (Foreword to Sadanand Naimpalli’s Theory And Practice Of Tabla, 2005).

While precursors to what today is the percussion instrument of choice in Hindustani classical music date back to a couple of millenia ago, the tabla as we know it evolved till as recently as the early 19th century, according to the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Vol 5 — South Asia (1999). And till the 1950s, it was restricted to being merely an accompaniment in musical performances.

“Earlier tabla players were basically non-entities when it came to receiving any attention in a performance. Their names did not appear in ads, and LP and EP record covers did not list their names. When it came to their remuneration… it was a tenth of what the lead artist was paid… there was never any focus on tabla players as being an equally important part of a classical concert,” Hussain told his biographer Nasreen Munni Kabir. (Zakir Hussain: A Life in Music, 2018).

Zakir Hussain is often credited for elevating the status of the tabla. “He was a pathbreaker, a game-changer, an icon who put tabla and Indian music on the world map…,” Nayan Ghosh, who plays the sitar and tabla, told the BBC. Hussain, however, always credited the “big three” — Pandit Samta Prasad, Pandit Kishan Maharaj and his father Ustad Alla Rakha — for this feat.

Although he undoubtedly popularised the tabla to what it is today, perhaps where his contribution is even more important is how he used the instrument in ways and contexts that were previously unimaginable.

Transcending styles, genres

“Beyond pure classical music, he experimented, dabbled in all kinds of fusion music… he was a great creator,” Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, a legendary tabla player in his own right and a close friend of Zakir Hussain, told The Indian Express.

Hussain was among the musicians to popularise “world music”, an eclectic coming together of musical traditions from around the world, most notably with his Grammy-winning band Shakti, where he partnered jazz guitarist John McLaughlin, violinist L Shankar, and ghatam maestro “Vikku” Vinayakram.

“Shakti is unique and unparalleled in the universe of music and it was probably the first group of its kind to have explored, without limit, the one salient feature that is common in Indian music and jazz — and that is improvisation…,” Hussain said in his biography.

Although recognised as a musical maverick by many, for Chaudhuri, Hussain “did not break any rules, so to say… He simply expanded the boundaries of music, and applied it such that he created his own style”.

That he did not break rules is hard to accept especially given that Hussain himself did not see things this way. “The most important fact was that we, the Shakti team, were young enough to allow for musical ‘sacrilege’, and so we could ignore the restrictions imposed on us by our respective traditions in the interest of finding a road towards onenes,” he said in his biography.

But such was Hussain’s credibility among connoisseurs that hardly anyone questioned the authenticity of his music. “He had immense respect for music, and other musicians, especially those older to him,” Chaudhuri said.

Hussain himself had always been certain that the path he was pioneering would in the future be frequented by many. “We were confident that our [Shakti’s] musical statement would become valid and accepted as a road to traverse and that would eventually lead to what is now known as world music,” he said.

Charismatic master of his craft

Speaking about Hussain’s unique style of playing the tabla, Chaudhari said that “while he belonged to the Punjab gharana [one of the six schools of tabla which boasts its own unique repertoire and style], he was trained by his father to play in all different gharanas’ styles… this helped him create his own style”.

In his biography, Hussain talked about how gharanas were limiting. “I often hear young tabla players tell me: ‘Should I be playing Punjab gharana? But this composition from this other gharana is so nice too.’ I tell them: ‘There’s no such thing as wrong, it’s just different. That’s all it is. Use it in your playing. Don’t think of it as wrong. If you do, you’re limiting your experience.’,” he said.

Chaudhuri also spoke about Hussain’s presentation. “To be a good musician, you have to know how to present to the audiences… to connect with them… [Hussain] was great at this. He was a communicator on stage, very jovial… but still respectful and serious about his music,” he said.

This kind of charisma made Hussain’s live performances memorable, allowing him to keep his audience transfixed for hours to the beat of his melodic drums. He could tell stories with the beats of his tabla, and sometimes, with the verbalisations of bols, the fundamental rhythmic syllable used in all tabla compositions.

Bringing life to this artistry was unparalleled technical mastery of his craft. The New York Times, in its review of a 2009 jazz performance at prestigious Carnegie Hall, wrote: “He’s a fearsome technician but also a whimsical inventor, devoted to exuberant play. So he rarely seems overbearing, even when the blur of his fingers rivals the beat of a hummingbird’s wings.”

Chaudhuri, who lives a couple of miles from Hussain’s residence in San Francisco, and used to frequently collaborate with the late musician, said that in all their years together, they never once rehearsed a performance. “We would just get on the stage… Hussain was among the very few tabla players who could adapt to any kind of style in just a couple of minutes,” Chaudhari said.

Such was Zakir Hussain’s mastery that his performances have often been referred to as “perfection”. But the maestro himself did not agree with this assessment, and that is not just because he was by all accounts a very humble man. As he put it in his biography, “I always say music dies each night and is reborn the next day. ‘Ek shamma jali, parwana uda, taiyyar hui, taiyyar hua.’ The parwana [moth] will burn, and yet it will be drawn to the flame again the next day. Perfection is something you’ll never attain. But it doesn’t matter if I don’t attain it, at least, I would have tried.”