← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
Zakir Hussain On The Tabla And Binging Indian Music Traditions To The World
00:22:30
At this year's Grammy's, tabla player Zakir Hussain took home three Grammy awards, the first artist from India to win that many in one year.
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- [00:18]
A
You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Today we're hearing some producer picks from Zach Goderer Cohen. And we'll close out today with some music from the late, great tablas player Zakir Hussain. Zach, how much did you know about tablas before this conversation and what did you learn?
- [00:36]
B
I knew what they sounded like. It's the sort of the pitched drums that you'll hear in Indian traditional music, but that's about it. I've always sort of loved that sound and I've heard it in some of the contexts that Zakir had brought into other genres, but hadn't really engaged with it on its own. And, and one of the things that I learned was how like they're pitched drums, which like a pitch instead of just like a rhythm kind of thing. And you can hear that in the playing, in the way it sounds almost like singing more than drumming to keep a beat or to keep a pulse. And one of the things that I found as I was doing research was that Indian classical music sort of operates on this like 16 subdivisions rhythmic structure. That's the patterns are based on syllables. So like, for example, I wrote this one down because I was gonna forget Taki ta takadimi is. You can hear the taki tak takadimi is how that would sound on the drums. And it was really cool thinking about how different people around the world who engage with music through different traditions might not just think about the music differently, but also about like how to learn the music differently, how to transmit that music from generation to generation differently. And by the way, Zakir Hussain's father, also a tablet player.
- [01:55]
A
After prepping the segment, you realized that you actually did know his work.
- [02:00]
B
Yes. I had accidentally seen Zakir Hussain in a context where I did not know it was Zakir Hussain. The Dev Patel movie, Monkey man, which was action packed martial arts movie, I think it was Dev's directorial debut. He also starred in it and wrote it, I think. And there's a scene where, you know, any good fight movie has to have the training montage, right? The da da da of Rocky. The, the monkey man version of that montage was Dev Patel has been rescued by a group of trans women and one of them is a tablas player. And the training is Dev is going at it with a punching bag alternating with these tablas playing. And it was almost like the player, the drums were training in a call and response kind of way. It was just fantastic. And then as I'm doing research for this segment, I'm like, why does Zakir look so familiar to me? Like there's no way I've seen. And then I was like, oh, oh, the topless player of Monkey man, of course. And so I made that connection. And it sort of goes to show how important it was for Zakir not to only be really, really juasik at his instrument, but also for him to be bringing this instrument into these other artistic contexts, whether that be genres of music that don't usually have tablas or in movies where people would go see him play.
- [03:30]
A
Let's get into my conversation with the legendary tablas player Zakir Hussain. Zakir Hussain. So nice to meet you.
- [03:47]
C
Nice to meet you too.
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A
So on the face of it, tabla playing seems like it would be fall into the western idea of the rhythm section.
- [03:56]
C
Usually does.
- [03:57]
A
Yeah, but you know, in Indian music you often play with much longer phrases than eight bar beats. How do you describe tabla and the kind of drums that western audiences would be more familiar with?
- [04:11]
C
Well, to put it in a nutshell, I mean, you talk about drummers in the western world, but then you have drummers in the western world who are band leaders like Buddy Rich or somebody like that. And they play solos, they perform, and they are feature drummers who do things. And so where tawla fits in in Indian music is exactly that. It's not only an accompanying instrument, but also has a solo repertoire and a tradition that has existed for over 300. And so that therefore has developed an immense cache of repertoire that can be performed on the instrument. In fact, in India it's normal to have a one hour or a 90 minute tabla concert or a rhythm concert where aficionados, thousand, two thousand people will come and sit there and listen to a concert and, you know, enjoy it, appreciate it. So that's how it works in Indian music. And one thing about tabla is that it's an instrument that lends itself well to being able to fit in with technical abilities of any other drums because of its muscular tradition and fingers like piano interacting together. You can be a bongo drum, you can be a conga drum, you can be a drum set drum and do all that and transpose all that information onto the tabla and provide a harmonic element as well, where the low drum acts as a bass and the high drum acts as a rhythm, like a bongo or something, but with a tone and a pitch. So therefore it allows for that harmonic experience as well as a rhythmic experience.
- [06:01]
A
Is it good for improvising?
- [06:03]
C
Yeah, it's amazing for Improvising, because that's what Indian music is all about. I mean you set up a melody and a bridge and then you improvise a la jazz. The difference in jazz you improvise over a set of chords called the foam. But in Indian music you set up a melody in a raga mode, like say one chord and then the whole song is based in that one chord more melodic form as opposed to a harmonic form.
- [06:35]
A
You don't have a tabla in front of you right now. I'm hoping you can give us a little demonstration with your voice. Have you heard of this? The kanakal?
- [06:42]
C
Oh yeah, the konakol, which is what we first learn. I remember when I was 2 days old and I was brought home from the hospital and my father, I was handed to my dad. And the tradition is that the father would recite a prayer in the child's ear. The first words that the child should hear is that. And so my father took me in his arm and sang rhythms in my ear.
- [07:08]
A
And.
- [07:09]
C
Cause he's, you know, he was a rhythmist and so my mother was of course very upset about it. But he said, but this is my prayer and this is what he's going to do. So after that the tradition was that he would just sing rhythms to me. And at the age of three or four, when I started to d. He would take me to a shrine that was near the house and we'd sit there and we'd sing rhythms with each other. And he would say, okay, here's one. And I had to reply to that. So I had to make things up to be able to further the conversation, advance the conversation. And that's how it is. We learn it as a language. And so when we play we think about it as something that we are telling. It's a story, it's a happening. And so you try to induce the instrument into making emotional content into the performance. And so that's one of the, one of the advantages that tabla has over other percussion instruments.
- [08:19]
A
My guest is Akir Hussain. He is a world renowned tabla player. Okay. Earlier this year you won three Grammys. Yeah, congratulations for sure.
- [08:28]
C
Thank you very much. I was lucky.
- [08:30]
A
You were lucky. We'll talk about that.
- [08:32]
C
No, I mean you end up connecting with some incredible musicians and you ride on their shoulders. I was on this album with my friend of 50 years, John McLaughlin, who's a jazz guitarist and we had, we formed a band in 1970s called Shakti and it didn't quite get that recognition but this year it Won, you know, the best world music album award. And I made another album with Bela Fleck, the band.
- [09:06]
A
Get There, we'll get there. First, let's hear a little bit from the album that won best Global Music Album. This is a song bending the rule this moment.
- [09:15]
C
Okay.
- [09:38]
A
Ra, what were your goals for recording this record that song?
- [10:11]
C
We were sitting in our own little homes dealing with the Pandemic and. And just kind of talking with each other, connecting, and. And we started sending music to each other, MP3 files or whatever, and. And then John started putting them together and he said, wait a minute, guys. I mean, this sounds like we could actually put all this together and make an album. And so that's how it began. And then we got seriously involved in it and we figured out softwares which would allow us to interact on zoom and audio movers and whatnot, different things. And so this is how the album was born. And then finally, when Pandemic was done, me and the other rhythmist, Selva, got together in Monte Carlo with John and laid down the rhythm track and to give it a live feel. And so that's how it came together. And also, I mean, while we were making an album, one of our friends called us and he said, hey, guys, do you realize by the time this is done and it comes out, it will be 50 years that you've been together and John and me, that is. And 50 years since it was first founded the band. So it felt just right. I mean, it was just perfect. And it allowed us the time we needed to be able to reminisce and put this together in the way so we could, you know, put a concoction of all those 50 years into this album. And that's what happened.
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A
That's lovely. You also won best Global Music Performance for your contribution to a track called Pashto. Who will we hear on this track when we hear this?
- [12:03]
C
Well, Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer, myself, and this Indian flautist, Rakesh Chaurasia. We were on the album. Pashto was something that was my nod to actually an old friend of my dad who was a keeper of this tradition, which actually kind of put together Indian, Northern Indian folk music with Celtic music. That's interesting. It turns out that the British army had these musicians who played the bagpipes and whistles and whatnot, and they got together with the Northern frontier musicians of that time 200 years ago and interacted and instruments were exchanged and so on. And in recent times, when I was growing up, there were still bands in India which played a Very hybrid form of music with bagpipes and whistles and bowdrons and so on and so forth. And so this gentleman was my father's dear friend. And so, just to give a nod to, even at that time, with such violence around us, there were these musicians who crossed over all those hindrances and made music together that had something positive to say. And so that's what Pashto was all about.
- [13:29]
A
Let's listen. My guest is Sakir Hussain. He is a world renowned tabla player. We're talking about his Grammy wins, his current tour, his long career of collaborating and bringing all the sounds of India to our ears. You've talked about listening and the importance of listening to the musicians that you're playing with. What happens when you listen?
- [14:35]
C
You react more naturally and inject that which is important for the conversation. I must give you a little example of it. There was an actor called David Niven at one time in Hollywood, and he, as a young actor released a movie. And so in those days, the tradition was to show the movie in private, in a party, on a screen in Hollywood, in somebody's home. So he did that and there was everybody coming up to him and saying, oh, that was great, that was great, that was great. But there was this one senior actor who just sat in the corner without saying anything. Finally, David approached him and said, Mr. Chaplin, you have anything to say about this? And Mr. Chaplin said, young man, don't just stand there waiting for your turn to speak. Learn to listen. So the question is, if you are not listening, you're not aware of the conversation. And that in improvised form of music, that is an essential part. Without listening, you're not able to put things together. And when someone like Miles Davis says too many notes, it basically means that you're just taking over so much time that you're invading someone else's space and not allowing for the conversation to be a collective. And so that's listening. And the most important seed in in the plant called improvisation.
- [16:16]
A
Zakir, you have a film, you have a cameo in the film Monkey man, which came out earlier this year, directed by Dev Patel. And we have a piece of an interview that Dev did talking about why he wanted you for this role and why he wanted the tabla for a particular scene. Let's hear.
- [16:35]
D
For me, it's like our cinema, our culture is rooted in music and, you know, Indian classical music. So it's kind of overlooked by the youth. And you know, my best friend Raghu, you know, he's an ardent Indian classical fan. I Went to dinner with this man, Zakir. I was like, I went to dinner with this dude, he's like, you know who that is? That's Zakir Hussain. He's like the greatest to ever play the drums, the tabla ever. Like, he's one of one. And that led me down a path of just watching all of his videos. And then I reached out to him and I was like, look, I've been, I've done this sequence. I want to do a musical kind of jazz thing. In India, they call it a jugglebandi, a call and answer. But, you know, you tear up the drums and I'm gonna be on this dusty rice sack and you're gonna kind of be my Mr. Miyagi or R2D2. And you're gonna not speak, but you're gonna speak to me with your instrument and help me tune mine. And then it's gonna kind of explode and get bigger and bigger.
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A
And it's so interesting, all the different cross cultural milestones that he mentioned in that clip. When you think about the tabla, why do you think music, maybe percussion, is good at bringing out these similarities in cross cultural reference, R2D2 to Indian classical music.
- [17:57]
C
It just harks to the time we live in. Everything is available to us at our fingertips. It's there. We step out of our home and there is a Cinemax or we open up our computer and there's Netflix or whatever. And so we are able to keep abreast of what's happening at the other half of the world and on the other side of the planet and at the same time. And that's why the young people understand that the acceptance of what somebody does in Japan or in Indonesia or in India, in Africa, in any part of, of the world is now a natural progress in being able to speak it, speak that language in a universal form. And then that's why you can associate tabla with an R2D2 or associate it with a character like Mr. Miyagi and it will make total sense to have whoever is listening to that conversation and put two and two together.
- [19:11]
A
My guest is Sakir Hussain. As we heard earlier, you're going to be touring with Rahul Sharma, whose father was a musician as well. As you have mentioned about your own father, but he's your friend as well.
- [19:21]
C
Yes, yes. I played for 40 years with Rahul Sharma's father. And in fact, I consider him as one of my mentor in my young age, helping me. You need to have some kind of a black boat to throw things in and be accepted. And he was that who allowed me to be me on stage and gain that, that confidence. And so yes, we did play together so much. And his son Rahul, who's a worthy successor of his father's legacy. And so to have him there and to hear that music in a younger hand and through a younger mind and that musicology and that musicality, if I may, is a challenge for me to be able to find a new way to be able to advance that conversation that I used to have 30 years ago with his father. So it's fun to be able to discover nooks and corners in my music, which Rahul and his way of playing that music requires for me to express through. And so that keeps the fire burning and keeps things more present and more fun.
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A
You can still be challenged at this.
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C
Point in your career.
- [20:41]
A
Really.
- [20:41]
C
Yeah, I can be challenged because today's young musicians are not just married to this one way of looking at music. They have a universal understanding of music. An Indian musician playing a raga structure, for instance, is not only experiencing that raga in an Indian mode, but also finding similarities of what it is in Japan or what it is in Indonesia or what it is in a jazz concert or or in an African ensemble and tie it all together into giving a projection of that particular mode in a more worldly manner. And so for me, it has now become like when I played with Ravi Shankar. My first concert in America was with Ravi Shankar at the Fillmore east in 1970. And things have changed since then. I mean sitar players today are much more, much more how would panoramic in their understanding of music. And so to have that challenge and hear the same music, but with so many layers of incredible harmonic influences, something to react to is just keeps me on my toes.
- [22:08]
A
That was my conversation with tablas player Zakir Hussain. He died on December at the age of 74, two months after joining us in studio. Thanks so much to Zach for producing this show. We'll be back tomorrow with a show curated by our producer Simon Close. Until then, I appreciate you listening, I appreciate you and I will meet you back here tomorrow. Since WNYC's first broadcast in 1924, we've been dedicated to creating the kind of content we know the world needs. In addition to this award winning reporting, your sponsorship also supports inspiring storytelling and extraordinary music that is free and accessible to all. To get in touch and find out more, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.