Zakir Hussein must be a proud father having a daughter that grew up to make phenomenal short films, such as this one dedicated to her father. Anisa Qureshi, which is her name, directed the documentary, which was produced by the renowned SFJAZZ institution and premiered at the 2017 San Francisco Jazz Festival on January 18th. The film is an excellent intro into Hussain’s extraordinary life and career. Born as the son of famous tabla player Ali Rakha, who was also a frequent accompanist of Ravi Shankar, Zakir began to play pakhawaj (an Indian barrel-shaped, two-headed drum) at the age of three and soon got recognized by the wider community as a child prodigy. At the age of eleven he was already touring, and by the age of 18, Zakir went to the United States in 1969 to do his Ph.D. at the University of Washington, receiving a doctorate in music. Soon after this, he started his prolific career, with an average of 150 concerts annually and hundreds of official releases as a leader and as a sideman. He was a part of Mickey Hart’s “Planet Drum” album which earned the 1992 Grammy Award for Best World Music Album, the first Grammy ever awarded in this category. The same project won another Grammy 17 years later, with the reunion album “Global Drum Project,” this time for Best Contemporary World Music Album at the 51st Grammy Awards Ceremony in 2009. Hussain took a key part in McLaughlin’s groundbreaking project Shakti and is also a founding member of Bill Laswell's 'World Music Supergroup' Tabla Beat Science.
The greatness of Zakir Hussain is demonstrated by the vast number of music legends and icons with whom he has collaborated during his career. Some of them appear as narrators in the film: Vijay Iyer, Eric Harland, Bela Fleck, Mickey Hart, Herbie Hancock, Edgar Meyer, Michael Tilson Thomas, John McLaughlin, Alonzo King and Charles Lloyd. But the number of iconic artists he has worked with is far bigger - Jan Garbarek, Shivkumar Sharma, Sting, Pharoah Sanders, Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer, to name few.
His influence in music is enormous. Hussain has been in the forefront of creating the world music idiom, and his virtuosity earned him the place among the most renowned jazz percussionists ever. On January 18, 2017, the SFJAZZ Center was filled with cultural and political leaders, celebrities, artists, and music enthusiasts, waiting for the institution to present Zakir Hussain with the SFJAZZ Lifetime Achievement Award. He deserved it, because his legacy as a musician left an unprecedented mark in music history, bringing closer together such disparate cultures as India and the West. Hussain’s devotion to what he does is possibly best explained by his longtime friend and collaborator, Herbie Hancock: "Everybody wants to play with Zakir Hussain. He's amazing. He's able to transcend cultures and national borders."
