Spirit Of Musical Instruments & His ‘Multireligious Faith’: 5 Gems From Zakir Hussain Interviews
Tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain was not just a master of his craft, but a lifetime student of music. He spoke of his tabla as a brother, friend and lover.
Zakir Hussain Death: Tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, 73, passed away on Monday, leaving behind an unparalleled legacy as one of the giants of Indian music. Filmmaker Hansal Mehta perhaps summed it up best in his tribute to the maestro. Hussain, he wrote on X, “brought an accompanying instrument to the forefront”. He “made the tabla sexy”, Mehta said.
In a 1999 interview with Hussain, US musician Michael Robinson said there “is a three-dimensional quality to Hussain's solo tabla concerts that belies the previous limitations of non-pitched percussion”.
Hussain was not just a master of his craft, but a lifetime student of music. He spoke of his tabla as a brother, friend and lover, and emphasised the importance of recognising talent beyond the “marquee name” in a field.
“People should not get caught up in the idea that Indian music begins and ends with Ravi Shankar,” he said in an interview published in The Cornell Daily Sun. “Even at the time when he became internationally famous, there were other sitar players who were just as great and highly revered in India, but who people outside of India never heard about. Now, I may be considered the tabla player of the day, but I can honestly name at least 15 tabla players who are just as good as, if not better than, I am.”
His interviews teemed with repartee, and dwelt heavily on fond childhood memories, and the vast musical experiences his father — the OG tabla maestro Alla Rakha — exposed him to.
Excerpted below are some of his most striking statements from various interviews.
On His First US Concert
“In India, I was used to playing with the audience chiming in,” Hussain said in a 2021 interview to NPR. “Everybody saying ‘Wow’ and ... ‘Do that again’, and all that stuff. But here the audience was quiet, eyes closed, meditative. The room was dark so you couldn’t really make eye contact with the audience, and so you were left to rely on your interaction with your fellow musicians.”
On ‘Culture Shock’ During Initial Encounters With The West
“I had seen that the West was more liberal, more open — more sexually open than we were in India,” he said in 2021 to All About Jazz. “All that was a revelation. I saw my first striptease show in London, Soho, and I was like, ‘What? People do this?’ We weren’t even allowed kissing on Indian screens in films. There was no dating, no nothing. That wasn’t possible.”
On The Spirit Of A Musical Instrument
“My father always said that each instrument has a spirit and if you are a student, half the battle is to get that spirit to accept you as a mate, as a friend,” he told PTI last year, “Once that happens, the instrument reveals how you should react to it, touch it and express yourself through it.”
On His ‘Multireligious Faith’
“I am the quintessential Mumbai boy,” he told The Times of India in a 2016 interview that dwelt on India and tolerance. “I was brought up in Mahim. My father was the best tabla player I knew… My parents were staunch followers of Islam. At home, after my morning prayers and riyaaz, I would go to a madrasa and pray. From there, I’d go to St Michael’s school, before which I would go to the chapel and say my hymns and novenas. In the evening, I used to go to a temple and then come home to learn tabla again.
“No priest or mullah prevented me from doing what I did – I was welcomed into every house of God and I felt blessed in each place. I grew up with this multireligious faith imbibed in me.”
On The Globalising Effect Of The Internet
“When I was growing there was no internet, no YouTube, so it was not possible for me to sit in India and plug into the Miles Davis Quintet and watch that while I’m practising raga whatever,” he told All About Jazz in 2021. “Now while musicians are practising raga ‘Bhoopali’ they are listening to maybe Herbie Hancock’s ‘Watermelon Man’ and they are able to find ways to make it fit raga ‘Bhoopali’.”
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