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Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un.
We belong to Allah, and to Him, we return.
— The Quran, Surah Al-Baqarah, Verse 156
Ustad Zakir Hussain, the transcendental tabla maestro who took Indian classical music to new heights, passed away on Sunday, December 15, 2024, in San Francisco, where he lived. He was 73 years old at the time of his passing. He is survived by his wife, Antonia Minnecola; his daughters, Anisa Qureshi and Isabella Qureshi; his brothers, Taufiq Qureshi, and Fazal Qureshi, also tabla players; and his sister, Khurshid Aulia.
Born Zakir Allarakha Qureshi on March 9, 1951, in Mumbai, to tabla maestro Ustad Alla Rakha Qureshi — better known as Alla-Rakha — and his wife Bavi Begum, the prolific musician was renamed Zakir Hussain a few days after his birth on the advice of a Muslim saint, he had revealed at an event in 2018.
A prodigious talent, Hussain began training in the tabla when he was still a child. He would practice with his father from 3 am to 6 am every morning before going to the madrasa where he studied the Quran. Having grown up reciting hymns and odes to Saraswati — the Hindu goddess of knowledge, literature, learning, and the arts — alongside studying the Quran, Hussain's music, like his father's, embodied the syncretic spirit of the Indian subcontinent. He began performing concerts when he was seven years old and started to tour with stalwarts like Pandit Ravi Shankar and Ustad Ali Akbar Khan by the time he was twelve.
Hussain was given the honorific 'Ustad', which means 'master' in Urdu, like his father Alla-Rakha, for the speed, precision, and flamboyance of his performances. Together, the father-son duo elevated the status of the tabla from a modest percussion instrument traditionally played as a rhythmic accompaniment, to one fit for virtuosos.
His fluid, effortless free-styling improvisations on the tabla infused Indian classical music of the Punjab gharana with a spark of jazz-like spontaneity. His passion for experimentation led him to collaborate with both Indian classical musicians like Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, and Shivkumar Sharma, and global musicians like John McLaughlin, George Harrison, Yo-Yo Ma, Van Morrison, Billy Cobham, and Mickey Hart, taking Indian classical music to global audiences.
His achievements and accolades were as diverse as his expansive body of work. He was awarded the titles of Padma Shri in 1988, Padma Bhushan in 2002, and Padma Vibhushan — the second-highest civilian honour in India — in 2023 for his contributions to Indian music.
In 2009, he performed four sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York — a rare occurrence for an Indian classical musician in the United States of America. The New York Times, in its review of the performance at Carnegie Hall, described his artistry as embodying "an impish strain of virtuosity".
Hussain was awarded the first-ever Grammy award for Best World Music Album for Planet Drum, which he co-created and produced with Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, in 1992. This was the first of his four Grammy wins — the last of which he won earlier this year for the album As We Speak (2024) with banjo maestro Béla Fleck, bassist Edgar Meyer, and bamboo flutist Rakesh Chaurasia.
Over the course of his decades-spanning music career, Hussain's experimentations and collaborations with global musicians proved the endless possibilities of Indian classical music and cemented his legacy as a cross-genre collaborator. His passing marks the end of an era but the beginning of a musical legacy that will echo through the ages.
As we bid farewell to this unmatched master of the tabla, all that is left to say is, Wah, Ustad!
