Legednary Tabla Virtuoso Zakir Hussain Dead At 73
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Zakir Hussain, the Grammy-winning Indian musician regarded as one of the world’s greatest tabla players, has died. His family revealed in a statement to press that Hussain died of pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease, at a hospital in San Francisco. He was 73.
Hussain’s work with artists such as George Harrison, Earth, Wind & Fire, John McLaughlin, and Mickey Hart brought him widespread adulation outside the realm of Indian classical music. Within that context, he was royalty — almost literally, as the son of fellow tabla master Alla Rakha, a close collaborator with Ravi Shankar. Hussain won the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian award, among other honors such as the United States National Endowment for the Arts’ National Heritage Fellowship.
Hussain was born in 1951 in the city now known as Mumbai. As the BBC notes, he described growing up in an “atmosphere of music 24 hours a day,” training under his father. “From the age of seven, I sat on the stage with Abba whilst he played with so many greats. It was a lived experience for me, and it allowed me to absorb all that I had heard over the years,” he told his biographer Nasreen Munni Kabir in 2018. After getting the opportunity to perform with Shankar as a teen, by age 19 Hussain was performing all over India and the world.
Hussain’s tabla can be heard on albums like George Harrison’s Living In The Material World, Van Morrison’s Into The Music, and Earth, Wind & Fire’s Powerlight. He performed in the band Shakti with McLaughlin, who called him “the King, in whose hands, rhythm became magic.” He also teamed with Hart, the Grateful Dead drummer, on the 1992 album Planet Drum, which brought together percussionists from around the world.
Hart shared this eulogy for Hussain:
On December 15 at 3:42 pm, we lost one of the greatest rhythmists that has ever lived on this planet. Zakir Hussain was my brother for over 50 years, my closest collaborator, and my dearest friend. Over the years we have shared places reserved only for those whose lives are totally engulfed by drums.
As the son of the great Ustad Allarakha, my early mentor, Zakir was trained from birth in the classical tradition of North Indian music. His prodigy was fated, his role as a rhythm master had been cast.
As a teenager, Zakir had a dream that determined his future in America. For a time we lived together in Novato, California in a barn at my ranch. His skill at the young age of 19 was breathtaking. We embarked on our shared life journey of over 50 years of collaboration from the Diga Rhythm Band to Planet Drum, from the Thanksgiving dinner table with his wonderful family to Carnegie Hall. His wife, daughters and granddaughter were the lights of his life. Family was everything to Zakir.
His knowledge of both western and eastern world rhythms was unequaled. He had perfect pitch and total recall for the most complicated rhythmic cycles. His instruments were like the rains, dense sheets of sounds performed like blurs of lightning-fast fingers on small, tuned drums. With the skill of a surgeon, he weaved a rhythmic spell with each finger at the most rapid speeds that can be imaginable.
The world will never be the same without him.
In his later years, Hussain was known to forgo big-name collaborations in favor of teaming with younger, unknown names to shine a spotlight on them. He won three of his four Grammy awards this year, including one for Pashto, a project created with Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer, and Rakesh Chaurasia.
