CHENNAI: Drop the sir, call me Zakir”, the friendly effervescence in his voice is as vibrant as his music. Chennai will see this maestro’s performance for the Shakthi Foundation on the evening of February 11. “The foundation does great work in creating awareness and facilities for the differently-abled. Late Mandolin U Srinivas was its ambassador and in his name, we always show up.” The fondness at the mention of U Srinivas’s name flows without missing a beat.
Zakir Hussain is no stranger to the music lovers of Chennai. Ten minutes into our conversation and it was a delight to notice the ease with which he pronounced words like ‘Thaniyavardhanam’ (solo performance of a percussionist) and names of South Indian musicians like Palghat Mani Iyer and ML Vasanthakumari. “Well, what do you expect? I’ve been playing with these legends from the south since 1966! I’m more than familiar with all of them.”
Fifty years and more of being a professional musician who is lauded the world over reflects the pure passion Zakir has for his tabla. He won his first Grammy in 1992 for Planet Drum and was the youngest musician to be awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2002. A child prodigy who began playing with his father Ustad Allah Rakha Khan since he was a four-year-old, Zakir is a titular force in popularising fusion music in India and hindustani classical music abroad.
“The audience today is quite evolved and appreciative of our creativity,” says the music-composer of the award-winning Indo-French Malayalam film, Vaanaprastham (1999). “I’d love to create music for a feature film but I’m a travelling musician. If a filmmaker can work around that with me, I’m open”, says Zakir. A peek into the mind of this genius ‘pride of percussion’ shows a child-like enthusiasm and simplicity which embraces our Q&A as well.
There are individual masters and world famous bands with whom you’ve created magic in various musical genres. How do these collaborations add to your own skill as a star-performer?
I’ve been very lucky to perform with legends who have shared their world with me. Musicians don’t put fences! There are no separate genres for us. Rhythms are rhythms and music is music universally and all we want is to have wondrous learning experiences each time we play. The first thing we do when we perform together is to get rid of being strangers to each other. We vibrate on the same wavelength and understand our music and rhythm together. When we advance our learning process, we offer something new and unpredictable to the audience. This is what I’ve observed from the great Balamuralikrishna, TR Mahalingam, Pandit Ravi Shankar and many such maestros. So I’m not doing anything new. The tale (music) has always been there — I ensure I make people resonate with my way of narrating the tale…that’s all! I give a ‘musical hug’ to my fellow master-musicians on-stage and what you call magic is that musical warmth which gets transferred on to the audience. (Smiles)
Is there a difference in playing percussion for carnatic vs hindustani music, as thaalam is not kept by anyone specific in a hindustani concert? How do you follow/fix/improvise thaalam
in hindustani?
Well, in hindustani, the harmonium or sarangi plays to the same length as the rhythm of the percussion. The ‘Time Signature’ here comes from the melody player. It makes our performance all the more interesting as opposed to someone else keeping the meter. For example, when we play a tabla-sitar concert, we keep the taal in turns. If I play a tabla thaniyavardhanam, the sitar-master keeps time for me and vice versa. The process is the same for both styles — we just prefer to hear more sounds when we play hindustani.
I’ve heard you perform in 1993 at the IIT Sarang concert with Pandit Shivkumar Sharma and the sound of your tabla still sounds as unique. How do you see your moment of awakening and arrival with your art?
I wasn’t aware of my art for a long time but even as a three-year-old, I recall being drawn to music. My happiest childhood memories are of a sleepy-eyed me sitting behind my father on stage at his concerts. The tabla rejuvenates me. It’s like I’m in this room with my favourite toy in the world, what more can I ask for?! I realised I was comfortable with the tabla early on but what has made it everlasting is the incredible number of collaborations I’ve had with musical maestros from across the globe. The need to plunge into our world of music hasn’t diminished at all. I always tell young players to make a deep friendship with their musical instrument. Once your tabla accepts you, it’s magic! I’ve a ‘Mate-ship’ with my tabla. I found my voice in it. It’s not a chore for me to wake-up every day to play — it’s an unpredictable, enjoyable outing!
When you say unpredictable does that mean you don’t prepare?
You see, a concert for me is a continuation of a conversation we (musicians) have backstage! We chat on world affairs, on the latest movie we saw, on Dhoni’s sixer, on how our flight was that day, etc. But what we are also doing is getting comfortable with each other’s space(s). We get to know the other person’s mood, his/her feelings in that precise moment before we go on to play. And as the curtain goes up, our conversations continue — just that on-stage we don’t talk in words, we talk in music! So no, we don’t rehearse or practice for a performance. And we don’t classify our music as fusion or any such. The first time the word fusion came about was when the head of CBS Record Clive Davis asked John Mclaughlin and me what genre to classify our album Shakthi and we told him he can call it whatever he wanted to — our music was all that mattered to us.