Music is a pristine and pure experience: Zakir Hussain

Ustad Zakir Hussain is about to create some enchanting musical fusion with singer, composer and music director Shankar Mahadevan and the 'Godfather' of Indian jazz, Louis Banks, as he brings his Nirvana 17 - Crosscurrents International Tour to Dubai this Friday, January 27.
The legendary Grammy award winning tabla maestro needs no introduction. A child prodigy of Indian classical music, he has carved out a niche for himself in the genre of world & fusion music and is showing no signs of slowing down.
When City Times asked him who his dream collaboration was with during the course of his long and illustrious career, he said, "Every collaboration is extremely dear to me. All artists that I have worked with have become my good family friends. With each collaboration I get to learn something new from the other musicians. If I consider any one as my dream project, then I should retire. There's nothing like a dream collaboration, you have to keep on dreaming."
He also spoke of the growth in the appeal of fusion music, saying, "Since the 1970s, South Indian musicians have seen the connections between jazz improvisation and India's classical music traditions.
From the awareness the genre known as "fusion" was born, and this, in turn, starts an interface between East and West that continues to excite a younger generation of music and listeners."
The maestro, who was presented with the SF Jazz Lifetime Achievement award recently, one of the many accolades of his career, spoke about how music is a universal language and can help bring people together.
 "Music in itself is the greatest positive message that brings people together. Music's energy is very positive - it's a pristine and pure experience. If you could just for a moment close all the windows and doors and connections to the negative energy in this world and just concentrate on the music for a little bit - for those fleeting moments all the cares and worries of the world just sort of dissolve and leave you.
"You come out of a concert hall or even listening to a record in your living room rejuvenated and able to face the world again. In that sense, music is one of the greatest sources of positive energy and so I guess that message speaks for itself."
THE MAGIC OF 'CROSSCURRENTS'
Zakir spoke about how the ensemble Crosscurrents represents a crossroads between several genres. "It all started in the 1920s and '30s, when India was very much influenced by Hollywood musicals, big bands, swing music and dancing. That was the first connection India had with non-Indian music and maestros like Ravi Shankar, my father Alla Rakha and other great musicians in the late '50s, early '60s inspired jazz artists to seek more in terms of musical expression from sources other than American music. That connection between Indian classical music and jazz can be heard in Crosscurrents. My whole desire was to acknowledge the inspiration that first came to India of jazz and what it was all about, and to find a way to pay homage to it."
ON TEAMING UP WITH LOUIS BANKS AND SHANKAR MAHADEVAN
"I am looking forward to meeting the entire band. When we go on stage we spontaneously connect. It's more of a conversation. Someone comes up with an idea and throws it out to somebody and says, 'What do you think of that?' The other musician takes it and says, 'This is good, how about adding this?' You talk music, you converse musically, then it's possible for you to be able to create something.
"When I work with a musician, I know what he likes to drink, what he likes to eat, what his family is about, what his son and daughter are doing. Then only, after talking to him about the world and his likes and dislikes and my likes and dislikes, then we go on stage and we carry on the conversation. The difference is instead of speaking Hindi or English or French or Italian, we're now speaking the language of music."
A  PHENOMENAL FUSION EXPERIENCE COMES TO DUBAI
Zakir had a message for his Dubai fans: "With me on stage are respected jazz bassist Dave Holland, Chris Potter on saxophone and four Indian musicians - Shankar Mahadevan, composer-guitarist Sanjay Divecha, known for his work with A.R. Rahman, and Louis Banks, who is considered the standard bearer of Indian jazz. Finally, we have Gino Banks who is a phenomenal drummer. I can just sum it up by saying: Be there to experience it."
enid@khaleejtimes.com