The music of Shivkumar Sharma, Zakir Hussain
'What he wants you to do is to let you know, what he knows. Okay, you will either sit here and let him do it, and it goes by you. Or you will sit there and concentrate on what he is doing, listen to it, and try to see melodically what kind of patterns are happening, and what he is saying through that.
Or you just sit there, looking in every now and then, picking whatever hits you. Like you would shop for something. And at the end you will say,"Well, on the whole, it wasn't such a good shopping day today…'
--Zakir Husain, from an interview
It was an historical, illustrious evening, the first area appearance of the great musical pioneer Shivkumar Sharma, accompanied on the tabla by the incredible Zakir Husain9the duo were underlined superbly on tanpura by Mamta Bhargaza}. Sponsored by the India Association of Buffalo, and held on April 16th at the Williamsville High school East, it was a spectacular presentation of Indian Classical and Folk Music by two of its most outstanding exponents.
The quote which opens this text should give some indication of the fierce compassion and dedication with which both men address their music, their audience, and their lives. To watch them either in verbal or musical conversation is a collective marvel. Pandit Sharma very composed, very calm, Hussain equally composed but highly spirited. Musically, in the passing of moments, this would lead to an empathic nurturing, harnessing, and dramatic release of lyrical spontaneity which was beauteous to behold.
Pandit Sharma, playing the 100-stringed santoor, is melodic lighting, each strike of his mallets extracting infinite intrigue and visceral immaculacy. Rhapsodically vivid, aurally plaintive, or hushed with the melancholy of the twilight yielding that first dawning smile. Infinitudes. Precision. So poised was the delicacy of his expression that Pandit Sharma could paint this lush scenario, transport us deep into the contours of the tapestry, then quietly sweep us away to perceive the scope of what has occurred; often bringing all these sensations into a single scintillating moment. At times, his unbelievable wrist control would actually turn the music inward, the mounting silence dancing with the imperceptible touch of sound itself! Which almost as suddenly erupts, the silence blossoming into iridescent shower. And always, his bedazzling technique would transport us into penetrating narrative of the music itself.
Pandit Sharma, his pioneering mastery bringing the staccato-oriented santoor into the concert halls since 1955, bears a status held by a rare few(Andres Segovia with the guitar in Western classical music. Eric Dolph with the bass clarinet in jazz) in that he has taken an instrument, traditionally regarded as minor, even illegitimate, and has single-handedly transformed it into a major cultural voice. A global tone. Bringing his early vocal and tabla training to bud into an even more percussiveness; a single mouth which can blossom into choir. (More the pity, then, that no other area media saw fit to cover this most historical event}.
Considering, as he told me the day before the concert, that he himself felt the instrument less than proper when his most gifted father, the late Pandit Umadutt Sharma, first guided him in his youth to play santoor, it may be said that Shivkumar Sharma has come full circle; he is one with his instrument as only one at the focus of expression can be. From the boldest stroke to the subtlest reverberations, he is always inside the note, eliminating anything that would shatter the sacrosanct continuity which distinguishes music from a collusion of notes and scales.
If Pandit Shivkumar Sharma is melodic lightning, Ustad Zakir Hussain is the tempo of the thunder itself. The son of the immortal tablist Ustad Alla Rakha{who, like Pandit Sharma, comes from the state of Jammu, Kashmir}, Zakir grew into a deep love for the instrument at a very early age. By the age of 12, he first head Sharma, by 15 or 16, he was accompanying him in concert. Like Shivkumar, Zakir has developed keen perceptions of national tradition and intuitive continuity. His work in the epic collective Shakti gave him a sharp look at the varied sides of improvisation, and an equally sharp look at critical avarice from the East and the West. And he, like Shivkumar, bears some insights into the type of naïve cultism that the Western world en masse has perceived Indian culture to be. " In the Western countries, they have a certain kind of mentality, " he states. "Something happens, they look at it and say 'wow'. And that stays for a few months, and then…you know. But then, out of those millions who look at it and go 'wow', there are some who stick with it, who filter through. They have stayed, and they have helped to create some more interest in our form of music."
As his words strike the concise force, great sensitivity, and unabashed fluidity, so does his mastery of the two-section drum known as tabla perpetually gather and roll listeners into endless plateaus and grand currents of conceptual earth and flame. The sound which declares I am here after santoor has sent the word saliently streaking through the multitudes. A tap on the consciousness. A deeply-struck thrust of life-pulse. A barely skimmed surface deftly pierced. And, as those occasionally bungled the P.A. system that night discovered, nothing escaped the tablist's fine-honed ear.
This, then, was an amazing duo, shaping, exchanging, exhilaratingly surprising each other growing the music, inviting our own participation as well. The uniqueness of this high form of improvisation came forth mightily, and with great heart shared by all, regardless of musical training held throughout the audience. The concentration pervaded. The feeling prevailed. The integrity triumphed.
While noting how students in India have come to hear this music far more than when he was the student, Pandit Sharma made a point which speaks succinctly for this music, for all music. "Rhythm is in your life. Everywhere there's rhythm. Your pulse, your heart, your walk is in rhythm. Melody and rhythm combine together, as life. It's bound to have its effect."
"It goes on slowly. But it lasts."
by Michael F. Hopkins
PRODIGAL SUN, Buffalo.
©COPYRIGHT 1997 Shivkumar Sharma Associates