The duo will bring their talents to NJPAC this weekend for a much-anticipated concert
For Zakir Hussain, the world's most-famous tabla player, music has been something shared between musicians and between generations.
His father, Alla Rakha, was the most well-known tabla player of his day, regularly performing with sitar master Ravi Shankar. Now the award-winning Hussain -- having established himself across the fields of Indian classical music, jazz and world music -- is helping raise the profile of younger performers from India.
His latest effort is a tour with sitarist NIladri Kumar, which brings him this weekend to NJPAC in Newark and a sold-out show at the Skirball Center in Manhattan.
Hussain, 65, said his earliest introduction to music "was a conspiracy." He said that from birth, his father began to sing Indian rhythms in his ear. "By three, it was all there," he said, noting that his first tabla teachers were his father's students.
He played tabla for several years, saying, "I was a ham." He recalled that "whenever I sat down at the tabla, it was the happiest place I could be...it was the greatest playpen." But it was not until he was seven years old that his father finally asked him: "Do you really want to do this seriously?"
After Hussain excitedly answering in the positive, they were soon up at 2 a.m. each day learning music.
"I was tired....but it was magical," he said, adding that it was particularly sweet because he worshipped his father. "I finally had him to myself."
When Hussain was a teenager, he recalled, a fan of his father once approached the two of them and said that the son sounded like the elder musician. Hussain said he was surprised to hear his father say that he hoped his son didn't sound like him. "I hope he finds his own way," his father said.
In fact, Hussain did, in part due to his father. While his father travelled the world with Shakar, he brought back varied albums, from Miles Davis to the Grateful Dead. As a young man, Hussain also played with a mix of musicians on Bollywood film soundtracks and, he recalled, during breaks they would jam, using influences from all over.
In 1969, Hussain took what he thought was a short-term assignment in the United States, playing with Ravi Shankar to replace his father, who was ill. Bringing with him just a suitcase and a tabla, Hussain ended up staying to teach at the University of Washington and eventually meeting open-minded musicians from across genres with whom he would collaborate, people like jazz guitarist John McLaughlin and Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. He has lived in the United States ever since.
He said he found in McLaughlin "another brother" and that he was immediately comfortable playing with him when they formed Shakti, which was the first popular fusion of jazz and Indian classical music. The acoustic band, which also fused Northern and Southern Indian musicians, brought Hussain and Indian music to new audiences around the globe.
Another ground-breaking collaboration was with Hart and other percussionists from around the world in a group called Planet Drum, whose first album won the first Grammy in the new world-music category in 1991. Hussain said that later this year there will be a 25th anniversary reissue of the Planet Drum album with several tracks that were not included on the original.
Four years ago, Hussain said, he decided to give back by raising the profiles of younger Indian musicians who had been working away for years building audiences in Indian concert halls. For many outside the country "Indian music begins with Ravi Shankar and ends with Ravi Shankar," he said. "Not much attention has been paid to the bench strength of Indian music."
Hussain said he aims to "cement [Kumar's] place as an international representative of Indian traditional music." As with all the young masters he is working with, Hussain said, "I tell them 'don't hold back,'" adding he wants them to "give as good as they get." For each performance, he said he wants to "go up there as colleagues; not me senior and you junior." With some experience together, he said, "they burn a fire under my behind and I hope I do the same for them."
Zakir Hussain and Niladri Kumar
When: Sunday at 3 p.m.
Where: Victoria Theater at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 1 Center Street, Newark
How much: $49-$79; call 888-GO-NJPAC; or go to www.ticketmaster.com
Marty Lipp may be reached at martylipp@hotmail.com. Find NJ.com on Facebook.