Bold truth: Zakir Hussain turned a deeply esoteric classical tradition into a global beacon, redefining what percussion can mean for the world. And this is the part most people miss: his legacy isn’t just about dazzling technique; it’s about building bridges between cultures through rhythm.
Tabla great Zakir Hussain’s last major work in L.A. premiere - Los Angeles Times
Hinduism’s compassionate god of divine love, Lord Krishna, is often depicted with a flute. Some stories trace the tabla’s mythical origin to Krishna splitting a large drum into two smaller hand drums for rhythmic support, turning these tiny instruments into a trusted backbeat. In Indian classical music, melody has long been the star—sitar virtuosi eclipsed tabla players, who traveled in a secondary, often underpaid role.
A father and son reshaped that dynamic. Alla Rakha was Ravi Shankar’s steadfast tabla partner, helping to spark a worldwide fascination with raga in the 1960s. Shankar’s influence drew in Yehudi Menuhin, the Beatles, and Philip Glass. His son, Zakir Hussain, a master tabla tutor in his own right, expanded the instrument’s appeal into jazz, broad pop genres, film, and television. Hussain emerged as one of the earliest champions of the world music movement, melding tabla with flamenco, African, Indonesian, Afro-C Cuban, and other global drumming traditions. His lyrical, human sound has become part of the world’s sonic landscape.
Monday marks the first anniversary of Hussain’s passing at 73, due to a pulmonary illness. His final project was a collaboration with Third Coast Percussion, commissioned for the Chicago ensemble’s 20th anniversary: “Murmurs of Time.” It stood as the sole percussion ensemble work by one of the world’s greatest percussionists. Hussain lived to record the piece but did not hear the final mix, nor perform it in public.
The Hussain collaboration, “Standard Stoppages,” and related percussion works arrived just in time for the 2026 Grammy nominations, and are strong contenders in the chamber music/small ensemble category. Meanwhile, Third Coast has toured “Murmurs,” with Hussain’s disciple Salar Nader as soloist. Last weekend, Third Coast performed the engaging CD program to a sold-out Nimoy, as part of the CAP UCLA season.
Nader, born in Hamburg to Afghan refugee parents and raised in California, began studying with Hussain at seven. He stands as one of the most prominent torchbearers of the next generation of tabla players, poised to broaden the instrument’s horizons.
Looking back, the path carved by Alla Rakha and Zakir Hussain offers a masterclass in turning devotion to a complex, arcane tradition into something widely embraced and accessible.
Rakha, a formidable traditionalist who made tabla the core of his life, still found joy and livelihood in Bollywood tunes in the early 1950s. After returning to classical Hindustani music and collaborating with various soloists, he partnered with Shankar and pursued a near-exclusive duo career. Their intricate, call-and-response musical conversations electrified audiences at Monterey Jazz Festival, San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium, and Woodstock. It was a two-person essential; no one wanted one without the other.
Hussain’s life began with rhythm. His name was blessed by a wandering holy man who appeared just after his birth, and his father’s gentle tapping as a baby shaped him. By his early teens, Hussain was already a Mumbai sensation.
Rakha’s pedagogy respected individuality; he believed in the unique voice of every musician and treated carbon copies as a waste. Hussain absorbed Hindustani music while also tracing his father’s Western vinyl finds—The Doors, the Grateful Dead, and Jefferson Airplane—picked up during Shankar’s West Coast tours. It wasn’t long before Hussain found himself on the West Coast, swept up in the 1960s pop scene. He befriended Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart and met George Harrison, who reminded him that countless rock drummers existed, but few with Hussain’s tabla mastery.
Yet Hussain became a tabla virtuoso of many trades. He acted in the 1983 film Heat and Dust and contributed to soundtracks. He joined Shakti, the world-music-jazz ensemble formed by John McLaughlin. He anchored Hart’s Planet Drum project, a landmark fusion that helped fuse world music with mainstream pop.
Soon, Hussain was a staple in jazz, performing with Herbie Hancock and Charles Lloyd, contributing to soundtracks for Apocalypse Now and Little Buddha, and collaborating with Béla Fleck in bluegrass. His following included fans as diverse as Michael Tilson Thomas, Barack Obama, and Nancy Pelosi.
But Hussain’s real achievement lies in collaboration. Indian rhythm is famously intricate and spiritually centered: tabla players often sing the rhythms as much as they play them, a breathtaking, chant-like complexity. The drums can quietly carry melody and, when unleashed, accelerate with astonishing speed.
In Murmurs of Time, Hussain crafted something like a tabla concerto. The ensemble relies heavily on mallet instruments to establish texture, weaving a melodic thread or pulse. The opening awakens with collective vocal rhythms—an effect only a true tabla artist can conjure. The piece closes with a powerful exchange between tabla and drum set, evoking the dramatic finales Hussain and Shankar were known for.
Hussain wrote Murmurs for himself, collaborating with Third Coast over a year. The word “wrote” underplays the process; Hussain needed space for improvisation, not a fixed score. Salar Nader learned the demanding solo from the recording and then, as Hussain would have wanted, added his own personality.
That evolution will continue. On record, we hear a poignant farewell. In performance, Murmurs will evolve into something new, still honoring the guru while exploring fresh horizons.
In a post-concert discussion, Nader—based in Los Angeles and active in film and theater—emphasized his interest in what lies next for tabla. He contributed to Mira Nair’s Reluctant Fundamentalist soundtrack and dabbled in Broadway with The Kite Runner. He notes tabla’s versatility across genres, including hip-hop, recalling Planet Drum as an early influence.
Tabla is here to stay, and Nader is a musician to watch.
Would you like this piece tightened further for a specific platform (e.g., press release, magazine feature, or blog post), or adjusted to emphasize a particular audience (musicians, general readers, or potential students) while keeping the same core information?
