Zakir Hussain, a world-renowned tabla player and composer who helped to incorporate American classic sound into American music, passed away at the age of 73.
Hussain died Sunday evening in San Francisco of , idiopathic pulmonary disease, a chronic lung disease, his household said in a statement.
According to the statement, Hussain was praised as” the greatest tabla player of his generation” for his decades-long efforts to blend musical genres and became known as” the chief architect of the contemporary world music movement.”
For his work, Hussain has been awarded with honors including the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, India’s most wealthy respect for performing musicians,  , SFJazz’s Lifetime Achievement Award , and the , Aga Khan Award, per his mother’s speech.
Earlier this year, Hussain became the first Indian to receive , three Grammy Awards , in one day.
He leaves behind a remarkable legacy that many music lovers around the world does treasure, and his influence will stay with us for the long run,” the statement read.
Born March 9, 1951, in Mumbai, Hussain gleaned his drum drumming skills from his parents, Allarakha Khan, who served as harp expert Ravi Shankar’s pianist during the top of Shankar’s job, according to the , Allarakha Foundation.
” A youngster prodigy”, according to his community, Hussain began studying under his parents at age 7, a member for Hussain confirmed. He collaborated with Shankar, as well as with a number of other well-known American players, including Ali Akbar Khan and Shivkumar Sharma, like his dad.
Hussain greatly expanded his artistic community after immigrating to the United States in 1970.
” ]Hussain’s ] groundbreaking work with Western musicians brought Indian classical music to an international audience”, his family’s statement said, “cementing his status as a global cultural ambassador”.
Alongside important guitar John McLaughlin, Hussain in 1973 formed the fusion group Shakti, which yielded influential , albums , for as” Shakti With John McLaughlin” and” A Handful of Beauty”.
In a 2000 article for , The Times, music critic Don Heckman wrote about Shakti about” the encounters between jazz, rock, and Indian music that took place between guitarist McLaughlin, tabla player Hussain, violinist L. Shankar, and ghatam ( clay pot ) percussionist T. H. Vinayakram provided eye- and ear-opening opportunities to experience a breadth of music that reached well beyond the then-commonly accepted
Hussain even listed Grateful Dead’s Mickey Hart among his closest associates and musical partners. The two collaborated on albums” Planet Drum” ( 1991 ) and” Global Drum Project” ( 2007 ), the latter of which won Hussain his first Grammy.
” Zakir Hussain was my brother for over 50 years, my closest partner, and my dearest friend. Over the years, the two of them have shared spaces that are only accessible to those living in homes utterly enshrouded in drummers,” Hart said in a speech to The Times.
” ]Hussain’s ] knowledge of both western and eastern world rhythms was unequaled. He had great angle and complete recall for the trickiest repetitive cycles, according to Hart. ” His devices were like the rains, dense sheets of sound performed like blur of lightning-fast hands on small, tuned drum. He weaved a repetitive charm with each hand at the fastest speeds that can be imagined using the expertise of a doctor.
” The universe will never be the same without him, “he wrote.
In recent years, Hussain has served as an educator in residence at Princeton University and Stanford University and, in 2015, was appointed Governors Lecturer at UC Berkeley, his mother’s speech said. In 1991, he founded the separate report label , Moment Records.
Hussain is survived by his wife, Antonia Minnecola, his daughters, Anisa Qureshi ( her husband, Taylor Phillips, and their daughter, Zara ) and Isabella Qureshi, his brothers, Taufiq Qureshi and Fazal Qureshi, and his sister, Khurshid Aulia.
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