Zakir Hussain & Hariprasad Chaurasia - Raag Jog IV
I woke up yesterday all set to resume work on December gems for here, and was greeted with the craptastic news that the world had bid farewell to a true visionary Maestro for the ages.
My first thought was admittedly a selfish one: oh man, thank Providence I got to see the guy play in person a few times whilst he was here.
My second thought was sadness at his too-young demise at 73, and the impact both on his family at the micro and the broader global musical community at the macro, having lost a master teacher such as this.
My third thought -- OK, this thought was sort of simultaneous with the first two -- was that wait a minute, I'm already working on a show of his, that I was considering remastering and posting this coming Tuesday, on what I erroneously thought was its 37th anniversary.
Once I determined that December 17th was not correct, I went ahead and did it anyway, as well as an additional performance from earlier that same year of 1987, when our dearly departed hero saw the release of his very first solo record.
Of course it always helps to be the son of the world's most foremost tabla master, and I'm hoping Ustad Alla Rakha and his progeny are reunited in the hereafter, hi-fiving each other over what they achieved in this life.
His dad might have popularized the instrument, but Zakir Hussain took the tabla and Indian percussion into the wider world and made it a part of so much of the music we hear around us.
He first surfaced on a George Harrison LP in 1973 -- not a bad place to start I'd say -- and also guested on John Handy's hit album Hard Work.
It didn't take long for him to find his way into John McLaughlin's seminal band Shakti, which really got the ball rolling on the seamless fusion of Indian and Western sounds we take for granted today.
Obviously the whole trend towards integration of Indian instrumentation into non-Indian forms began in the 1960s, but it took things to progress to Shakti for the hybrid to become so perfect and natural you couldn't tell where the non-Western aspect began and the Western part ended.
Before their advent, things were more an uneasy fusion that sounded like one thing superimposed upon the other. When they hit, they showed how molecular the coming together could be.
From them, Zakir Hussain went on, over the ensuing 50 years, to bring his magic to every corner of the globe, integrating it into almost any sort of music you could name.
Let's put it like this: when the history of the tabla is written, his name will be as prominently mentioned as anyone's, his father's included. When I watch those hilarious "Tribal People React To Rock Music" clips on YouTube and the old, bearded sagely looking guy confers "Ustad Status" upon whatever Rock Star is the subject, people like Zakir Hussain are precisely the caliber of über-Maestro of which they speak.
So a great player, performer and teacher has left the building, but not after constructing the modern edifice of his chosen instrument into a towering force upon our world. Not too many musicians of any background can make such a claim, can they? I will shaddup now and we can all get up and shruti our socks off in honor of this fallen master, OK?
Zakir Hussain & Hariprasad Chaurasia
"Another World"
BBC Studios
London, UK
5.16.1987
01 BBC introduction
02 Raag Jog I
03 Raag Jog II
04 Raag Jog III
05 Raag Jog IV
06 BBC outro
Total time : 59:02
Hariprasad Chaurasia - bansuri flute
Zakir Hussain - tabla
with an unidentified tamboura player
master cassette of an off-air capture of the original BBC3 FM broadcast
this has a minidisc passthrough stage in the lineage, but there is no further compression as a result
slightly edited, repaired, retracked & remastered by EN, December 2024
369 MB FLAC/link below
369 MB FLAC/link below
Zakir Hussain presents Peshkar
Gardner Arts Centre
University of Sussex
Brighton, UK
10.2.1987
first set
01 introduction to Peshkar: Zakir Hussain
Part 1: North Indian Classical
02 introduction of musicians and the santoor
03 Raga Madhuvanti
Shivkumar Sharma - santoor
Zakir Hussain - tabla
Neina - tanpura
Part 2: Western
04 introduction of Larry Coryell
05 Opus I
06 Opus II
Larry Coryell - guitar
second set
Part 3: South Indian Classical
07 introduction of L. Shankar
08 Ragam Tanam Pallavi i & ii: Ragam & Tanam
09 Ragam Tanam Pallavi iii: Pallavi
L. Shankar - violin
T.H. Vinayakram - ghatam
Zakir Hussain - tabla
Caroline - shruti box
Part 4: Fusion Confusion
10 band introductions
11 I Want You
12 Scotland
13 Sally
14 Sabah
15 Making Music
L. Shankar - violin
T.H. Vinayakram - ghatam & vocals
Zakir Hussain - tabla & vocals
Larry Coryell - guitar
Anthony Hindson - guitar
Total time: 2:36:13
disc break goes after Track 08
PsyKies' 1st gen VHS off-air capture & transfer of the complete, original BBC3 FM broadcast
edited, retracked & somewhat remastered by EN, December 2024
952 MB FLAC/direct link to both shows
952 MB FLAC/direct link to both shows
I have so much happening on so many fronts I'm spinning like a Christmas ornament on LSD, but look for me to really ramp things up starting this coming weekend.
I would be remiss, however, if I didn't tribute this fallen superstar of the firmament, via these two stellar concert instances, and say out loud the obvious: That Zakir Hussain made as large and as positive an impact upon this world as a human being can possibly make, and by that metric alone he cannot possibly ever really die. In fact, his music and message was and is so monumental, that in a very salient sense he's only just begun to live.--J.
3.9.1951 - 12.15.2024