Zakir Hussain, the groundbreaking percussionist who helped bring the 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 tabla-playing father who invited his son to perform with him from a young age. Since his beginnings as a prodigy, Hussain spent his early years collaborating with the greats of Indian music, including Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, and Shivkumar Sharma, before forming the Indian jazz fusion band Shakti, with jazz guitarist John McLaughlin, in 1973. He had been touring since the age of 12, gradually elevating the tabla from accompaniment to a lead instrument, through a “dancing fingers” technique that attracted an international audience—including the likes of 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 Apocalypse Now—in addition to 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 most globally decorated 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 a Carnegie Hall concert series in 2009. “This is music’s appeal, not mine,” he told the BBC in 2016. “I am a worshipper of music, who presents it in front of people.”