Tabla maestro Zakir Hussain on Shakti’s 50th anniversary India tour

Shakti is back on tour and tabla maestro Zakir Hussain talks about being back with his bandmates in Bengaluru

Ahead of Shakti’s much-awaited India tour kickoff show in Bangalore, tabla maestro Zakir Hussain talks about how the jazz-fusion group have sustained, soared and stayed rooted to their ideas of music

Even some of the most legendary musicians turned to video calls and remote productions of their recordings during the pandemic’s first two years. Now, after nearly three years apart, the tabla maestro Zakir Hussain talks about being back in the same room with Shakti bandmates John McLaughlin, Shankar Mahadevan, V. Selvaganesh and Ganesh Rajagopalan.

Rehearsals have been on in Bengaluru ahead of their first show on the 50th anniversary tour, which starts on January 20 in the city and heads on to Mumbai, Kolkata and New Delhi. Zakir Hussain recounts that prior to this they were sending each other recordings for an upcoming album and speaking over Zoom. “But there was no interaction in terms of sitting face to face and being able to work,” the tabla legend says.

So now, there’s a bit of “reprogramming, rebooting and remembering” that is taking place, according to Hussain. “After an hour or two, the wheels started turning, the oiling got in there and ideas started pouring in as they used to,” he adds. Shakti have dived into 12 different songs in preparation for the tour set and are figuring out how to navigate each piece.

As a band that thrives on spontaneity and flexibility, Hussain says there is faith that each band member has in the other. “There is no hesitation in being able to put an idea on the table and also no embarrassment. That’s what’s special about Shakti and that’s why it is an immense joy and musical satisfaction to be working with this group. It is similar to how to Indian classical musicians work together,” the artiste explains.

In the 50 years since the coming together of Shakti — it originally brought together McLaughlin, Hussain, violinist L. Shankar, mridangam veteran Ramnad Raghavan and ghatam ace Vikku Vinayakram — styles of music such as jazz-fusion, new age and “world music” (a term that may be on its way out but still has takers) were birthed due to the band’s compositions.

Hussain recalls, “It was just the four of us playing a concert, and that was it. I had no clue what was going to happen. But John called me up and said, ‘Hey, would you like to come into New York and and consider forming a band together?’ I had not even come up with any idea of forming a band as such.”