In an exclusive chat with Mid-day.com, Ustad Zakir Hussain discusses his upcoming collaboration with NCPA for the Symphony Orchestra of India's season with flautist Rakesh Chaurasia and sitarist Niladri Kumar, reminisces about a special moment in Mumbai, and explores the growing popularity of tabla as a versatile percussion instrument worldwide
For the upcoming Symphony Orchestra of India season at the NCPA, Zakir Hussain has composed a triple concerto with flautist Rakesh Chaurasia and sitarist Niladri Kumar. Photo Courtesy: Mid-day file pic
Ustad Zakir Hussain has only recently just got back from his world tour with his fusion band, Shakti. Before that, he was on an Indian classical music world tour. It has been quite a busy year already and is going to get busier with quite a few performances scheduled during the year. Interestingly, even though the Padma Shri awardee has performed around the world, he says “Mumbai is always going to be my favourite place to perform”.
It is not like he doesn't have favourites among the international cities, but “Mumbai is home”. Apart from New York, San Francisco, London or Paris, where the audience is almost as receptive as in India internationally, he says, “It is always the home city - Mumbai or the nearest one Pune because you know people. You look in the audience and you see old friends and school mates. That comfort is always a lot of fun and a great source of security when you are on the stage.”
Finding comfort in Mumbai
Hussain has many memories associated with Mumbai. So, it is no surprise when Hussain reveals that one of his most fond memories after all these years, also happens to be in Mumbai way back from the 80s. In his child-like enthusiasm, he narrates, “I was playing at the St Xavier's College quadrangle, and I think it was 4 am in the morning. I was playing with Pandit Ravi Shankar ji, the great sitar maestro, in 1987. We played one piece, which was about an hour and a half. Then we were re-tuning and getting ready for the next piece. There was somebody who came with a newspaper to my father. My father jumped up and his eyes turned big. I asked 'what happened?'. My father ran to the side, to the emcee and he went nuts. He went up on stage to Ravi Shankar ji, and I asked 'what is going on here!'. He (the maestro) took the mic and said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to report that Ustad Zakir Hussain has been awarded the Padma Shri'.”
Even though it was 5:30 am, the whole audience erupted, he recalled. Ustad Allah Rakha, his father, came up and garlanded him. Hussain says it was the first time that his father had put a garland on him. “I think it was the best Guru Dakshina, I could ever give him. I would have to say it was the seminal moment in my life. I feel I had satisfied my guru and father's need to see something special in me. So, that moment stands out in my life with the great Ravi Shankar, and my father also there.”
Hussain has evidently received a lot of love over the years around the globe. Soon, not too far from the same college, St Xavier’s, the 2023 Padma Vibhushan awardee will perform a triple concerto at the closing of Symphony Orchestra of India, by the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) this season, which starts on September 10; the unnamed piece commissioned to Hussain, has been composed by him, in collaboration with celebrated flautist Rakesh Chaurasia, and sitarist Niladri Kumar. He shares, "Maestro Rakesh Chaurasia and maestro Niladri Kumar are two of the finest flag bearers of Indian art. Their help is very precious in helping to bring this piece to fruition. They are who I believe as complete musicians because they are not just comfortable with being Indian classical musicians but they are just as comfortable wearing the hats of western classical music like jazz, orchestra or hip-hop because they have grown up simultaneously in these parallel systems, where they are comfortable with that."
He adds, "So, for me to have their eyes and ears noticing a piece or passage of music and knowing what exactly to do with it is such a great help. So, to write this concerto in the raga system is not possible to accomplish without the help of these two. They have worked with some of the great music composers of the Bollywood world, where working with and interacting with orchestras and therefore dealing with harmonies, counterpoints and canons, is a daily affair and to have that familiarity when they sit down with the orchestra, helps me to be able to write a piece, that allows me the freedom in my head to create it."
An effort, the humble Mumbaikar says was an enriching experience because he got to learn a lot from both the artists in many different ways, and intends to be a student of music all his life. “I have always looked forward to working with a new artist and to see my music through their eyes, my sounds through them. And I have found that that has been able to help me reinvent myself, reorganise myself, revamp myself. So, that's what makes it fun,” he adds, when we ask him, what keeps him going even after 60 years.
Reception to Indian classical performances
Having performed at so many venues over the year for more than six decades, Hussain has definitely seen the interest around tabla and Indian classical performances with it go through an encouraging change, and he credits that to the internet and media. “The interest level not only for tabla but also music - instrumental, vocal or dance amongst the listeners or watchers has increased a thousand-fold,” the music composer-percussionist says, continuing, “A lot of the work done there, has been by the media; with the advent of the web world with the data available on Google and YouTube, that has made the audience educate themselves, and therefore arrive at a performance, more well-informed than they normally would have been.”
This, he says, has helped them enjoy the performance a thousand times more, which has led to the increase in the number of people who come to concerts. “Before the Shakti tour, I did an Indian classical music tour, I was playing a Chicago Symphony Concert Hall, which has 2,800 seats, and they were sold out a month in advance, so that's what is happening,” shares Hussain.
Evolution of tabla as an instrument
While the concert halls are getting full for Indian classical music, even the tabla has evolved, beyond an Indian classical instrument, according to him. He notes, “The tabla is now at a point where it is recognised not as an Indian classical percussion instrument but as a rhythm instrument of the world, like drums or a congo drum. So, people are looking at the tabla as a drum of that type that does not belong to one country but is a drum that is now accepted universally as any form of music. It is now one of the most popular Indian instruments, apart from the sitar.”
While the percussion instrument has evolved, it also features in non-Indian musical settings, one that Hussain himself has been a part of for many years, but is also on the rise over the years. Undoubtedly, that was always possible, but Hussain credits the awareness and use to the versatility of the instrument, which he believes “can wear so many different hats”. He offers an explanation, “It is because the technique applied to the tabla is similar to the technique for piano, in the way that all fingers are individually used; they interact with each other just like on the piano. So, whether it is a Latin percussion, jazz, rock or hip-hop pattern, they can all be executed with equal ease on the tabla.”
It's not just the technique but also the variations of sound with the instrument that makes it even better to experiment with and that is what is also fascinating about it. He says the tabla offers harmonic tones which resonate and therefore gives you a bell like sound that gives you a pitch and a tone to react to. “Therefore, it is being used in telephone background music, suspense films or with rock, hip-hop, ballet or jazz. So, it is no surprise to me that tabla has found its way into these areas or different forms of music, adapting that sound, that music or samples of tabla into their composing,” he concludes.
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