Legendary tabla player dies at 73

Zakir Hussain, one of the world’s greatest tabla players, has died at the age of 73.

The Indian classical music icon died of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease, at a hospital in San Francisco, his family said in a statement.

Hussain was a four-time Grammy award winner and has received the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian award.

Through his performances, he transformed the tabla into a globally loved solo instrument that was the star of the show.

The tabla – a pair of drums used in Indian classical music – was historically viewed as an accompaniment to the main performance.

As news of Hussain’s death broke, tributes have begun pouring in.

Nayan Ghosh, who plays the sitar and tabla, called the news “devastating” and said that his association with Hussain went back 60 years to their childhood.

“He was a pathbreaker, a game-changer, an icon who put tabla and Indian music on the world map by transcending the boundaries of genre and inspiring generations of artistes,” he told the BBC.

Grammy winning composer Ricky Kej called him “one of the greatest musicians and personalities India has ever produced”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was “a true genius who revolutionised the world of Indian classical music”.

Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi said Hussain’s death was “a great loss for the music world”, while the US embassy in India said he was a “true maestro” and would be “forever in our hearts”.

Born in Mumbai in 1951, Hussain began training under his father Ustad Allarakha Khan, a tabla maestro himself.

Hussain described growing up in an “atmosphere of music 24 hours a day”. By age seven, he was performing in concerts alongside his father.

“From the age of seven, I sat on the stage with Abba whilst he played with so many greats. It was a lived experience for me, and it allowed me to absorb all that I had heard over the years,” he told Nasreen Munni Kabir, his biographer, in 2018.

As a teenager, he got an opportunity to perform with legendary Indian sitarist and composer Pandit Ravi Shankar. By 19, he was playing more than 150 concerts a year, both in India and internationally.

As his footprint grew, he contributed to the soundtracks of several films, performed solo and collaborated with artists on the global stage.

His 1992 album Planet Drum with drummer Mickey Hart won a Grammy in the inaugural category of the “Best World Music Album”. He also performed with legendary artists like George Harrison of the Beatles, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Van Morrison.

Hussain went on to earn seven Grammy nominations, winning four of them.

Speaking to the BBC in 2016 about his global popularity, he said, “this is music’s appeal, not mine. I am a worshipper of music, who presents it in front of people.”

Biographer Nasreen Munni Kabir noted that in his later years he became “one of the most sought-after accompanists to the very best of Hindustani classical musicians and dancers”.

Reviewing his 2009 performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall, the New York Times described him as “a fearsome technician but also a whimsical inventor”.

“So he rarely seems overbearing, even when the blur of his fingers rival the beat of a hummingbird’s wings,” it said.

“I am one of those musicians who came at the cusp of a great change in the music world and I was carried on that wave,” Hussain once recalled.

“I had the good fortune of establishing a very unhurried relationship with music, and at the same time, the wave took me places.”