Zakir Hussain was an icon of Indian classical music and world fusion, widely considered one of the world’s greatest tabla players.
- Died: December 15, 2024 (Who else died on December 15?)
- Details of death: Died in San Francisco of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis at the age of 73.
- We invite you to share condolences for Zakir Hussain in our Guest Book.
Zakir Hussain’s legacy
Any listener who has explored Indian classical music has encountered Hussain’s genius. A master of the tabla, a pair of hand drums widely used in music from the subcontinent, Hussain elevated the instrument from one typically used for accompaniment to one that in his hands was often the star of the show.
He had a head start with the instrument. Hussain’s father, Ustad Allarakha Khan, was himself a tabla maestro and began teaching him at an early age. At just seven, he was performing concerts with his elder. By his late teens, Hussain was performing over 150 concerts a year, thrilling appreciators across the world and establishing himself as a powerhouse in Indian classical music.
He came to the attention of western audiences in the early 1970s when he played on George Harrison’s (1943–2001) 1973 record, “Living in the Material World,” and joined with guitarist John McLaughlin to form an Indian jazz fusion band called Shakti. The blend of Indian classical and western jazz helped both genres cross over to global audiences. Over the years, Hussain had many other notable collaborations, including partnering with Béla Fleck and Edgar Meyer, performing with artists like Yo-Yo Ma, Herbie Hancock, Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead, Van Morrison, and Earth, Wind & Fire.
Among a slew of other awards, Hussain was a four-time Grammy Award winner, including winning three in 2024, the first time a performer from India won three Grammys in the same year. He was a multi-time winner of the Downbeat Critics’ Poll and Modern Drummer’s Reader’s Poll, was honored as a Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellow, and was the Kyoto Prize laureate in Arts and Philosophy in 2022. A composer and producer as well, Hussain taught at Princeton University, Stanford University, and the University of California at Berkeley.
Notable quote
“I was also fortunate because my father used to bring me records from his travels, so by then I had heard the likes of Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Yusef Lateef, Charles Lloyd, Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. All of this was an extension of where I was in India, and it made for a seamless transition when starting to play with people here.” —interview with The Cornell Daily Sun, 2016
Tributes to Zakir Hussain
Full obituary: The New York Times
