ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:

Welcome to This Being Human. I’m your host Abdul-Rehman Malik. On this podcast, I talk to extraordinary people from all over the world whose life, ideas and art are shaped by Muslim culture. 

ZAKIR HUSSAIN:

Success is every day being able to go to sleep content that your day was exactly the way you wanted it to be. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:

There are some musicians who embody the craft and the music of their chosen instrument to the point that it’s hard to separate the two. Like Jimi Hendrix with the guitar or John Coltrane with the tenor saxophone. Zakir Hussain and his tablas belong on that list. There is simply no better-known master of the instrument. 

For more than half a century, he’s been releasing music at an incredible pace, ranging from Indian classical music, to collaborations with George Harrison, to the soundtrack for Apocalypse Now. Through projects including Shakti and Masters of Percussion, he brings influences from his native India to collaborations with musicians from around the world. 

Zakir has been playing since he was a toddler, having learned the craft from his father, the great Alla Rahka, who was a close collaborator of Ravi Shankar and is often credited with bringing the tabla to the Western world.

Last year, Zakir Hussain won the Aga Khan Music Award for lifetime achievement. At the age of 72, he continues to tour, teach, record and platform other artists. I caught up with the great Ustad Zakir Hussain at his home in the United States.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK: 

Zakir, let me start by saying that you are in-- I mean, what's the word? Indefatigable. You know, you are incredible in terms of the energy of your work. Just this year, you're touring with the Masters of Percussion, your band Shakti, and Béla Fleck. You've accomplished so much and yet it looks like you're not slowing down. What drives you to keep going? 

ZAKIR HUSSAIN: 

I guess the thirst to learn more, to grow, to find new ways to be able to tell the same old story. So that is the challenge that drives me forward. It drives any musician forward. I mean, why would someone like George Harrison go to Pandit Ravi Shankar at the height of his career? You know, Beatles, big deal and all that stuff. He didn't need to go and learn sitar, but he wanted to grow. He wanted to learn more. He wanted to find a different way to be able to speak his music. So that was important. And that's exactly what drives all of us. When I'm playing with musicians, whether it's Béla Fleck or where it's my Masters of Percussion friends or John McLaughlin, Shakti, Shankar Mahadevan, whoever - I get to see what I'm doing through their eyes and listen to what I'm doing through their ears. And when that happens, it has a different shade to it. And that helps me to grow, helps me to rediscover myself in various shades, beyond various shelves. And so this is why I go forward, why any musician - whether it was John Coltrane or George or John McLaughlin - they all had this need to be able to learn more, grow more, expand their panorama. And that's basically what I'm trying to do when I work with these musicians.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK: 

You've been playing the tabla professionally for over half a century. You've been playing the tabla nearly your entire life. Do you feel that there's things that you can do on the tabla now that you weren't able to do before? 

ZAKIR HUSSAIN: 

I think where I have arrived at this point in my life is to be able to say more with less words. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK: 

Mmmm.

ZAKIR HUSSAIN:

When I was a younger man, I just had this urge and the need to be able to just throw everything in my arsenal at the audience, without the consideration that they needed to get things in doses. But now I am able to analyze and put together hopefully, just the right spices in the dishes to be able to make it palatable and remembered. And so that's where I am at the moment. Obviously, age has something to do with it. When you get to a point where you're not a whippersnapper like you used to be and the need to be able to impress and just dazzle has been satisfied now many, many times over. So that's not important. But what's important is to be able to speak not only with the idea of having things be valid to me and acceptable to me, but also with the thought in mind that I understand the intelligence of the audience that's sitting out there. And that ability to be able to grasp what I'm doing is at a higher level than I may have given them credit 30 years ago.  When I would be sitting behind my father when he was playing, I would sit there and watch him listen to an instrumentalist who was playing and waiting for his turn to join in and start. So all was fine. Everything was normal. Just, you know, enjoying. But as soon as he started playing, my father started playing, I just could not stop smiling. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK: 

Mhmm.

ZAKIR HUSSAIN: 

It just was one of those things that happened. It's as if somebody inside of me was tickling me. Inside of me was telling me something that was so incredibly happy and joyous that I could not stop laughing or smiling. And I felt embarrassed because I'm on stage with my dad. And I didn't want it to feel like that I was in any way being insulting. I would hide my head, you know, bow my head down so that people wouldn't see me laugh. But that feeling of joy, that feeling of happiness, that feeling of elation was, I guess, in some ways a precursor to my connection with my instrument. Because sitting with my dad and his DNA inside of me, I could feel his connection with his instrument. His connection with that spirit. And the joy of that happening and the anticipation that someday that would be me connecting with that instrument was an amazing moment of Bismillah or beginning. And I just felt the same kind of elation and same kind of ecstasy when I did my chilla. 

Chilla is something that you go away and be alone, you know, like a retreat when you're alone by yourself with your instrument or with your thought process. And I was doing my tabla and it was supposed to be for 40 days and 15, 16 hours a day and totally disconnected with the world. There would be a chosen person who would bring me food and leave it outside the hut that I was there in India. And at some point, even though nobody was supposed to come and see me, this dervish of a person came and saw me and spoke to me. And then after he had left, I felt that I could hear each and every stroke and see its effect on me magnified a thousand fold. And I actually was able to transmit myself or how should I say, place myself inside my instrument. And I could see the inside of the shell. I could see the inside walls and the contours. I could see all that. But that wasn't the only thing that happened. Once I was done and I came home and my father asked me, so anything you discovered? Anything you learned? And I said, well, you know, this particular composition arrived to me and so I recited it for him. It shocked him. It shocked him. And he just went very quiet for a moment. And then after a while, he said, how did you get this composition? And I said, well, this dervish came and he talked to me and he explained this thing to me. I was struggling with this combination of phrases. And he said, try it this way. And so there it was. And he said, describe the gentleman. And I did. And he looked at me with his eyes big and said, that is my grand guru. His grand guru teacher. And he said, but he hasn't been around for a hundred years now. So that is when I first felt the connection to the spirit. I knew that there was not just one, but a concoction of spirits, of not just my father's teacher, but his teacher's teacher and so on and so forth, who were converging and congregating in that place and showing me the way. So it finally dawned on me that the plugin has taken place. The hard drive is well connected and the USB port has accepted it. And I'm downloading to my heart's content. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK: 

You have this wonderful passage in the book, Zakir Hussain: A Life in Music, where you speak about the idea of rasa. And you know, one of the things that comes to me in my own experience of throughout my life, listening to recordings of the tabla or seeing the tabla played live by yourself and by others, is the way in which the instrument evokes, as you said, joy, but sometimes sadness, sometimes unity, sometimes distance. And I really had no language for that until I read your description of this idea of the rasa element in music. Can you describe what that rasa element is because it really is very powerful and I found it very helpful in clarifying to me in terms of understanding not just the process, but the remarkable thing that happens when someone like you plays the tabla. 

ZAKIR HUSSAIN: 

Oh my god, I do not consider myself at a level of that kind of awareness that shows me the depth of what rasa is all about, the concept of rasa is all about. You know, there's one thing that's interesting about music, especially in Indian classical music, which I grew up with, and that is that there is no ugliness in that form of music. I mean, there's love, devotion, spirituality, sadness, sacrifice, heroism, you know, all that valor and everything, all that is represented in the music. But one thing that we shy away from is ugliness. The music does not do that. But there are forms of music in other parts of the world that do delve in it, that do look into the world of Dante and try to find some kind of answers in that world, whether it's a painting in the museum in Florence, or it's a heart wrenching struggle of someone like Tchaikovsky with his music or Mozart's downhillness trying to write a piece of music that dealt with death. It's all knocking at your senses, asking you to come to terms with it in some ways. That is an idea that I felt I did not get a chance to connect with. And in that I felt I was a little incomplete. And the reason being, to know the good, you must know the bad. To be able to handle your relationship with heaven, you need to understand the depth of hell. I must embrace the idea of losing, of being humbled, of being dust and realizing that when that happens, I will not have any issues with being threatened. And so rasa is being able to experience the good, the bad, the ugly, the notable, the loving, the great. All those things and more in your music, but not in a way that you are calculating the quantity of the content that is being fed to you. But it is a collective effort not just with you and the spirits in the instrument and the instrument, but with everyone else that you are in congregation with - the other musicians, the other artists and so on. So when that happens, the collective awareness of each feeling, each emotion and the buzz that that creates elevates all of us together. Isn't that what zikr is all about? When you are in a circle like that.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK: 

Absolutely. 

ZAKIR HUSSAIN: 

And then there are 50 people doing the zikr or saying, Allah Hoo or whatever, but the fact is each one is feeling it a little bit differently. But in the end, somewhere along the line, everyone is feeling the same thing that happens. And when that happens, that's rasa.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK: 

That's such a powerful image. And I'm thinking about your work and the way in which collaboration - and often surprising collaboration - has been at the heart of your musical output. You don't just collaborate, Zakir bhai, you platform others. You create this stage where so many remarkable musicians, experienced and inexperienced, experienced and growing and experienced, come together and create beautiful music. How do you find those collaborative connections? Are there particular instruments perhaps that converse well with you and the tabla and you want to bring them in? Or is there something else going on? I think about the Masters of Percussion where literally you've turned instruments that often would have been used or maybe traditionally are used to keep rhythm, and you've made them the shining heart and the stars of the show. It's kind of an audacious thing to do. I'm so fascinated how you make those artistic choices about platforming and collaboration. 

ZAKIR HUSSAIN: 

Again, it's humans. It's people. I first look for musicians or artists who are willing to walk with me on the journey without any apprehension, without any conditions. And be open to basically jump off the cliff without a parachute. And so when you find an artist who has that trust in you and is willing to hold your hand and walk the path, everything else becomes easy, it doesn't even matter what instrument. It doesn't matter if the guy is just going to be standing there and clapping. It doesn't matter. But if you are on the same wavelength and you are thinking the same thing, looking at the same sunset and crying, you know, being overwhelmed by the beauty of that idea, of that vision is enough. So that is what I look for. I mean, I spend time with an artist. There are artists who I have met 15, 18, 20 years ago who are still on my bucket list of getting together with. And it's simply because we have kind of gotten together every now and then, circled back and met each other again. But we haven't hit that sweet spot yet. And when that sweet spot is hit, that's when I say to them, how about playing some music together? So that's how it happens. And this time around, when I had my Masters of Percussion tour a couple of months ago, I had somebody from Colombia, South America, and the man just stood there and just played his body. Just played his body. So it wasn't even like a physical, visible instrument that the audience could look at, but it was just him standing there and doing that. I have known him for 20 years, and it's the first time that we got together to play touring. But our meetings over the years, it made us come to a point where we could be brothers and we could be right and left arm of a body together. So I've been fortunate. Let's say someone like Pandit Shivkumar Sharma, who I played with for 50 years, or Mickey Hart, the Grateful Dead drummer who I've played with for 50 years, or Hariprasad Chaurasia, and people like Sultan Khan and so on. These relationships, including Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer, John McLaughlin, these were all built over decades, to finally arrive at a point where there was no air between us. We were the same nervous system. And so when that happens, the music - it's going to happen.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK: 

Yeah. This image of a nervous system is such a compelling image. And you've spoken so much about your relationship with your father. And you described just a moment ago the joy and the smile as you heard your father speak. But every home, as you say, is like a nervous system. And you speak and so many speak about your dad. But I'd love to know a little bit about your mom because I want to know what ammi ji’s, what mother's place was in the Hussein household.

ZAKIR HUSSAIN: 

She was the boss. She was the alpha, I have to say. I mean, thank god for her. Thank god for her being who she was that shaped me, my sisters, my brothers into who we are. Her contribution in making of us is equally great as my father's in making of me and my brothers. She, I mean, a village belle. A girl of 18 or something being taken and placed from a village in northern part of India into a big metropolis like Bombay. And then arriving and being there with my father, her husband. Next thing she knows, he's on tour. And she has to now deal with being a girl from a village in a city like Bombay - illiterate, not being able to read or write. So how did she manage to overcome those disadvantages, those frailties and being able to not only do that, but living in an Islamic neighborhood next to a shrine, a Sufi shrine, just feet away from our home and therefore being in the community that watches over each other. And then to reach a moment in her life where she had to go against the wishes of the community and decide that I would go to a Catholic school to study English. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK: 

Wow.

ZAKIR HUSSAIN: 

And that my sisters would be allowed to go to school as well, to be educated. None of the kids in the neighbourhood were going to schools and colleges or anywhere. They were going to madrassas, but not to study in a regular school. No academics. She decided on her own that that should be happening. She was the one who guided us daily in what our lives are all about, but never for a moment stepping over the idea of that which came from my father to us. She knew that what her husband had injected into her sons was of value. But what she needed to do was enhance that value by adding to it tools to be valid no matter where we went. No matter what we do. That we were able to communicate, that we were able to express ourselves, that we were able to interact. And not just with somebody who was eating paan and smoking biddies, but people all over the world. So I have to thank my lucky stars that she saw her way through and did that. I mean, that's the reason why I'm sitting here talking to you. My father in some ways was at a disadvantage. When he was traveling with Ravi Shankar all over the world, they were a duo. They were partners. But when it came to interaction with people away from the stage, they were not partners. It was Ravi Shankar who would speak. And my father would be just in the corner in the back sitting because he could not. He could not communicate in English, he could not communicate in French. He could not communicate in German or whatever. And he would sit there. And therefore he would not get the kind of focus that I got because I could communicate, that I could express myself, that I could talk about what I'm doing and that I could reveal without any inhibitions that which was inside of me. I wondered at times whether my father did not open his mouth to speak even a broken word or two of English, because he felt that he was going to fail. Keep that in mind and then you see the contribution that my mother has made. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK: 

Zakir Sahib before our final question or two, there's something that I have to ask you that's been pinging around in my head. I read somewhere that there was a period of your life when you wanted to switch over to rock and roll drumming. 

ZAKIR HUSSAIN: 

Yep. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK: 

Is it true that George Harrison convinced you to stick with the tabla? 

ZAKIR HUSSAIN: 

Not in so many words. But he talked about-- I mean I was sitting with him in a studio in Soho, in London, Trident Studio. I was playing on a track for him for his album called Living in the Material World. And I just said, you know, this is fine, this is great, but I would like to be a rock drummer and, you know, go out there and, you know, I mean, I guess I, in my naivete, felt that I needed to do that, to become popular, to become acceptable, to be to become a financial or economical success. And George Harrison looked at me and he didn't say, don't be a drummer. He just said, Zakir, outside this studio, there are about 500 drummers standing in line waiting for me to just call them in. And one better than the other, he said. Why do you want to be 501? He said, you are here, you know, head of the line. You're ahead of the line. You're right here sitting next to me simply because you have something unique to offer. You have something that I desire, something that I want. And that's why you are here. Why do you want to throw that away? And he said, look at me And that's George Harrison saying, I learned to play the sitar from my teacher, Ravi Shankar. But I would not in any way insult his teachings by getting on stage and playing bad sitar. But what I would do is I would transpose all that information that my teacher has given me onto my guitar, which I am capable of playing well to some degree, and offer my homage and respect and reverence to my teachers teaching to me through that. And not only that, because I am able to do that onto my guitar, I'm able to speak to my guitar in many different languages. So why instead of not you try to take your tabla and have your tabla be a rock drum on a Latin percussion instrument or an African djembe or a jazz drum. Why not take all that information and print it onto your instrument and make your instrument be the only one of its kind, unique that can speak all these different languages. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK: 

Stunning advice.

ZAKIR HUSSAIN:

Not only will you be able to play this instrument in many different ways and see it in a new light and offer the spirits in the instruments an interesting vantage point of seeing a world in a different way or the rhythm in a different way. But you'll be able to converse with musicians from all over the world and interact with them in their own languages and therefore become that much more irreplaceable and wanted. That kind of made sense. And so I put that being a rock drummer aside. It's not that I don't bang on the drums every now and then when I see one, but it's just that it made sense because tabla is an instrument that has the ability to be able to wear many hats. So that one little conversation over a bowl of yogurt and honey and nuts kind of changed my outlook of I mean, you never know where the next window will open from. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK: 

You know, as you're describing that moment of renaissance of people speaking to each other, I have to say, I've been listening to your recent album with Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer called As We Speak. And there are moments where I feel really lost in it. I feel so moved by it. I want it to carry me. And I want the music to carry me. And I don't think I would be exaggerating to say that for me, listening to that album has been a spiritual experience. It's been a rohani experience. Did those tracks, were they the result of you and Béla and Edgar and the musician Rakesh Chaurasia? Did you all compose those through improvisation? Because there is something about the sound that just feels emergent. And maybe that's the artifice of it but I'm wondering the genesis of that beautiful music. 

ZAKIR HUSSAIN: 

This is what I was saying when I said you've got to get to know the musician and you have to become part of the same nervous system. So Shakti or Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer, it's like Indian classical music. You don't compose. You get on stage and then you together build that canvas into a beautiful painting if you can. But a seed of an idea has to be brought. Somebody has to start the conversation whether it is Béla, Edgar or me or Rakesh bhai, and once that's put on the table, then everybody chimes in. How about this? How about that? And look at this and look at that. And so on and so forth. And that collective process. Well, you know, we were lucky because this album was made, most of it was made pre-COVID. So we were actually together. And we were able to sit together. We did a tour in 2018 fall, I think, and there was a tour that Rakesh showed us. He had joined us for the first time. So we did the tour and that led to us getting so excited about playing together that we said we should make a record. And so we assembled in Béla Fleck's studio after the tour, and then we just started playing together. And because we had played music that was already on some records or something or whatever, we felt that we should come out with new ideas which were already bubbling halfway through the tour. And so that's how it happened. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Before we finish Zakir Sahib, you know, people speak about success and I think it's rare that, you know, in the liner notes of a concert or when you're being introduced, people will refer to your success and your position in the world of music and the incredible influence you and those you've collaborated have had. And I wonder for Zakir Hussain, what does success mean to you at this moment? 

ZAKIR HUSSAIN:

Oh I guess I have to be able to stand behind what I have done and say, yes, that's exactly what I wanted to do. That is success. It's not monetary, it's not economics. It's not a gold or platinum records or whatever. It is that it's being able to wholeheartedly say, yep, that's it. That's what I wanted to do. But knowing fully well that it's done. Like I said, being perfect is not the idea, but the journey towards that perfection is the goal and the focus. And yes, so success is every day being able to go to sleep content that your day was exactly the way you wanted it to be.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Zakir Hussain Sahib. Tell me about a joy or a meanness that has come to you recently as an unexpected visitor. 

ZAKIR HUSSAIN: 

Oh well I would have to say that I always like to look at the bright side. And so anything that comes, whether it's mean or whatever. What's interesting is myself and my wife, Toni, flew into San Francisco from India, and we were going through immigration. She has an American passport. She's American. I still carry my Indian passport. I haven't changed citizenship. So she was waved through and I was told to get into some other line, even though I had my visas and everything for extra questioning. You know the name sometimes attracts a special attention. So we are blessed in that way. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK: 

We are. 

ZAKIR HUSSAIN: 

So in any way, my wife would not go and she said, he's my husband and I'll go with him. And so even though they wanted her to go away, she came along. And then we sat waiting in the waiting area where the window is at, and people were being called up for questioning - where and how and what and all that stuff. And then my turn came and the guy looked at me and said, so where do you live? I said, I live just across the bridge, you know, in Marin County or so on. Okay. And what do you do? I said, like my passport said, I'm a musician. What kind of music? Indian music. Okay. Do you know Ravi Shankar? Yes, I do. Okay. Have you seen him? Yeah. You played with him? Yeah. So after Ravi Shankar, who is the most popular Indian musician? And my wife looks up and shouts from where she was sitting. It's him. Google him.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Oh I love it. I love it. 

Thank you so much for your generosity, your honesty, your insight in taking us to some beautiful and liminal and incredible places. It has been such an honour for me to have you on This Being Human. 

ZAKIR HUSSAIN:

It is the same for me. Thank you ever so much for thinking of talking to me. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:

Zakir Hussain’s latest albums are As We Speak, which we discussed in the show, and a new album with Shakti, called This Moment. We’ll include a link to his upcoming tour dates in the show notes. 

Thank you for listening to This Being Human. This Being Human is produced by Antica Productions in partnership with TVO. Our senior producer is Kevin Sexton. Our associate producer is Hailey Choi. Our executive producer is Laura Regehr. Stuart Coxe is the president of Antica Productions. Mixing and sound design by Phil Wilson. Our associate audio editor is Cameron McIver. Original music by Boombox Sound.

Shaghayegh Tajvidi is TVO’s Managing Editor of Digital Video and Podcasts. Laurie Few is the executive for digital at TVO.

This Being Human is generously supported by the Aga Khan Museum. Through the arts, the Aga Khan Museum sparks wonder, curiosity, and understanding of Muslim cultures and their connection with other cultures. The Museum wishes to thank The Hilary and Galen Weston Foundation for their generous support of This Being Human.

In this episode, Zakir talks about: 

• His desire to keep growing, learning, finding new ways to tell the same stories, and rediscovering yourself throughout your career. 

• His collaborations with other musicians such as Mickey Hart, John McLaughlin, and John Coltrane. 

• After playing the tabla professional for over half a century, Zakir describes his musical journey from first hearing his father Alla Rakha play the tabla, to now. 

• The overwhelming emotions of happiness and joyfulness that he remembers feeling when listening to his father play the tabla. 

• His chilla training in India where he played tabla for 16 hours a day, for 40 days, totally disconnected from society.

• His book, Zakir Hussain: A Life in Music, and the idea of the rasa element in music. 

• His mother’s bravery when moving to Bombay, and her unwavering support of both his and his father’s music careers. 

• His brief dream of becoming a rock drummer, and how George Harrison talked him out of it. 

• His new album, As We Speak, with Béla Fleck and Edgar Meyer.

Quotes: 

"The thirst to learn more, to grow, to find new ways to be able to tell the same old story - that is the challenge that drives me forward. It drives any musician forward."

"I look for musicians or artists who are willing to walk with me on the journey without any apprehension, without any conditions. And be open to basically jump off the cliff without a parachute."

"Success is every day being able to go to sleep content that your day was exactly the way you wanted it to be."

Learn more about Zakir Hussain:

About Zakir Hussain

Zakir Hussain’s upcoming tour dates with Shakti and Béla Fleck

A performance from As We Speak

Follow Zakir on Instagram

Read Zakir’s book, Zakir Hussain: A Life in Music