Zakir Hussain, the groundbreaking percussionist who helped convey the tabla and Indian classical music to the world stage, has died, his household stated in an announcement. He died, in a San Francisco hospital, of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a power lung illness. Hussain was 73 years previous.
Hussain was born in Mumbai to a tabla-playing father who invited his son to carry out with him from a younger age. Since his beginnings as a prodigy, Hussain spent his early years collaborating with the greats of Indian music, together with Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, and Shivkumar Sharma, earlier than forming the Indian jazz fusion band Shakti, with jazz guitarist John McLaughlin, in 1973. He had been touring because the age of 12, step by step elevating the tabla from accompaniment to a lead instrument, via a “dancing fingers” approach that attracted a global viewers—together with the likes of George Harrison, Yo-Yo Ma, Van Morrison, and Pharoah Sanders, with whom he would go on to collaborate.
As his profile grew, Hussain composed scores for each Indian and Western cinema—together with contributions to Apocalypse Now—along with occasional performing appearances, although he lent a lot of his time to his work as a instructor and mentor to youthful musicians. He turned one of the globally embellished Indian artists, awarded 5 Grammys (together with one for Shakti), a Nationwide Heritage Fellowship, a Kyoto Prize, and a few of the highest honors in Indian society, along with being the topic of a Carnegie Corridor live performance sequence in 2009. “That is music’s attraction, not mine,” he advised the BBC in 2016. “I’m a worshipper of music, who presents it in entrance of individuals.”
