Review: Tabla great Zakir Hussain's last work, 'Murmurs of Time,' sets the stage for a new generation

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Lord Krishna, Hinduism’s compassionate god of divine love, is often portrayed with a flute in hand.Perhaps that has something to do with the story that when he cut a large drum in half, producing two hand drums for rhythmic accompaniment, which is a mythical origin for the tabla, these small hand drums came to be treated like a back-up rhythm section.

Melody was the star.In classical Indian music, sitar masters were stars, and tabla players traveled second class and were poorly paid.A father and son changed that.

Alla Rakha was the loyal tabla partner of Ravi Shankar, who created an international rage for raga in the 1960s, holding sway over the likes violinist Yehudi Menuhin, the Beatles and Philip Glass.His son, Zakir Hussain, an equally great tabla guru, expanded tabla allure into jazz, swaths of pop music, film and television.

He became one of the most convincing early proponents of the world music movement, readily fitting in tabla with flamenco as well as with African, Indonesian , Afro-Cuban, you-name-it drumming.Hussain and his tabla’s most warmly human sounds have entered the wide world’s soundtrack.Monday will be the first anniversary of Hussain’s death, at age 73, from a pulmonary illness.

His last work was a collaboration with Third Coast Percussion, which commissioned “Murmurs of Time” in celebration of the Chicago ensemble’s 20th anniversary.It was the only work by one of the world’s greatest percussionists for a percussion ensemble.

Hussain lived long enough to record “Murmurs” with the group but not hear the final mix, let alone play it in public.The recording with Hussain, “Standard Stoppages,” along with other percussion works, came out just in time for 2026 Grammy nominations and shows up in — and should be an obvious shoe-in to win in — the category for chamber music/small ensemble performance.In the meantime, Third Coast has b...