Remembering Zakir Hussain: Making Music

It is with great sadness that All About Jazz notes the passing of tabla maestro Zakir Hussain, who died of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis on Sunday, 15 December. He was 73. A virtuoso with few peers, Hussain dazzled diverse audiences throughout the world, by dint of his collaborations with musicians across musical genres.

Born in Mumbai, India, on 9 March 1951, Hussain learned tabla from his father, the great Ustad All Rakha Qureshi, accompanist to Ravi Shankar, Vilayat Khan and Ali Akbar Khan—giants of 20th-Century Indian classical music. Before he was out of his teens Hussain had played with them all.

Hussain's love of Indian classical music lasted his lifetime, but he was a curious musical traveler from the get-go, working his magic with pop and rock musicians such as George Harrison, The Grateful Dead's Mickey Hart, and Van Morrison. Jazz musicians were drawn to Hussain's intuitive sense of freedom, and over the years he would collaborate with the likes of Charles Lloyd, Pharoah Sanders, Pat Martino, George Brooks, and latterly, in a trio with Chris Potter and Dave Holland.

It was with English guitarist John McLaughlin (of Miles Davis and Mahavishnu Orchestra fame) that Hussain would enjoy his most fruitful musical collaboration in the ground-breaking band Shakti. Formed in 1973, the electrifying Indo-jazz-fusion band underwent various changes over the course of its episodic fifty-year journey, but Hussain and McLaughlin were ever-present, ever committed. This Moment (Abstract Logic, 2023), the band's first studio album in 46 years, won a Grammy for Best Global Music Album in 2024.

Rock, Indian classical, Indo-jazz fusion, for Hussain it was all part of the same tapestry, as he told All About Jazz in a 2020 interview: "For me, it has become more and more clear. I do not find that there is Indian music and then there is this little bridge to cross and there is jazz. I find that the connections are fenceless and seamless... it's all part of the same tree."

It was not until 1987 that Hussain record his debut album as leader. For Making Music (ECM) Hussain assembled McLaughlin, saxophonist Jan Garbarek and flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia. It was an album that he remained immensely proud of. "I would have to say that Making Music is my prom. It is a record of some reckoning," Hussain told All About Jazz.

From Making On Music we offer you the exquisite title track, a fine calling card for Hussain's compositional strengths as well as his quite brilliant ensemble playing. The man may have gone, but the music and the legend live on.