Zakir Hussain, the pioneering percussionist who helped bring tabla and Indian classical music to the world stage, has died, his family said in a statement. He died, in a San Francisco hospital, of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic lung disease. Hussain was 73 years old.
Hussain was born in Mumbai to a father who played the tabla and invited his son to play with him from an early age. Beginning as a prodigy, Hussain spent his early years working with Indian music greats including Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan and Shivkumar Sharma, before forming the Indian jazz fusion group Shakti, with jazz guitarist John McLaughlin, in 1973. He toured from the age of 12, gradually elevating the tabla from accompaniment to a leading instrument, through a technique “dancing fingers” that attracted international audiences—including George Harrison, Yo-Yo Ma, Van Morrison and Pharoah Sanders, with whom he would go on to collaborate.
As his profile grew, Hussain composed scores for both Indian and Western cinema—including contributions to Revelation now— aside from occasional acting appearances, though he lent much of his time to his work as a teacher and mentor to younger musicians. He became one of the world's most awarded Indian artists, awarded five Grammys (including one for Shakti), a National Heritage Fellowship, a Kyoto Prize and some of the highest honors in Indian society, in addition to being the subject of the Carnegie Hall. concert series in 2009. “That's the appeal of the music, not mine,” he told the BBC in 2016. “I'm a fan of music, performing in front of people.”
