Feb 3, 2025 10:49 PM
The Essence of Emily
In the April 1982 issue of People magazine, under the heading “Lookout: A Guide To The Up and Coming,” jazz…
Charles Lloyd (left) and Julian Lage perform at the Zakir Hussain memorial concert on Feb. 28.
(Photo: Rick Swig)During his 54 years as a Bay Area resident, tabla maestro Zakir Hussain had an unspoken reputation with locals as somehow being both omnipresent and omniscient. So it was wholly appropriate that the Celebration of Life and Music for the late virtuoso on Feb. 28 was held at Grace Cathedral.
Hussain, who passed away from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis on Dec. 15 in San Francisco at age 73, had a storied history with the Episcopal church’s massive Gothic cathedral. A towering architectural, cultural and spiritual landmark in San Francisco’s Nob Hill neighborhood, Grace Cathedral was the setting for two significant duo concerts with Hussain. (SFJAZZ founder Randall Kline produced the memorial concert, too, with the volunteer help from many SFJAZZ staff alumni, among many others.)
His 1990 pairing with tenor titan Joe Henderson expanded his Hindustani classical training foundation deep into jazz history, theory and practices. And after performing there with multi-reedist Charles Lloyd in 2011, the two formed their Sangam group with drummer Eric Harland.
A fundraiser for the Zakir Hussain Institute of Music, the sold-out event commenced wordlessly as sarodiya Alam Khan started into “alap (prelude).” He was one of a score of musicians and dancers from an impressively wide swath of genres and disciplines who performed in tribute to the singular artist over the course of four hours.
SFJAZZ Collective saxophonists David Sanchéz and Chris Potter and locally based conguero John Santos followed with Sanchéz’s “Canto.” The composer started playing on the baptisimal font steps in the back of the and continued to blow as he slowly walked in the aisle to join the two.
Potter remained on the dais to offer a solo rendition of his composition “Good Hope,” which was the title track to the 2019 supergroup album he recorded with Hussain and bassist Dave Holland. Towards the end, he exploited the cathedral’s vaunted seven-second natural reverberation by initiating a call-and-response session with himself.
Banjo wizard and bluegrass champion Béla Fleck’s creative relationship started with Hussain in the mid-2000s when he and bassist Edgar Meyer composed a trio concerto that the three played and recorded with the Nashville Symphony in 2006. (Last year, the three won the Best Contemporary Instrumental Album Grammy for their As We Speak live recording — one of three awards Hussain received that historic night.)
Fleck made the first of three appearances, with Abigail Washburn starting in the back and singing the traditional “Bright Morning Stars” as she strolled from the back to the front while he, Potter and Indian classical violinist Ganesh Rajagopalan accompanied her. Married as well as frequent musical partners, Washburn and Fleck then did a duo version of Charles Wesley’s 18th Century hymn “And Am I Born to Die.” While Washburn is an accomplished clawhammer banjoist, it was resplendent to hear her in a one voice/one instrument setting. She did double up on her and Fleck’s “Take Me To Harlan,” clogging percussively on a wooden board while singing with the trio and simultaneously soloing at one point and offering deft accompaniment throughout.
Rajagopalan remained on stage and was joined by Anantha R. Krishnan on mridangam. Their extended exploration of a specially composed Rajagopalan original set the tone for Marcus Gilmore’s thorough solo drum kit and percussion expedition.
Lloyd, who led a rare assemblage with Harland, bassist Harish Raghavan and guitarists Marvin Sewell and Julian Lage, started his performance in the second floor back gallery. As he did in 2011, he walked downstairs to the floor and then continued to play his “Nachekita’s Lament” as he made his way to the bandstand.
He switched from tarogato to alto flute as the group segued into Hussain’s “Kuti,” which he, Lloyd and Lage recorded on Lloyd’s live Trios: Sacred Thread album from 2022. Sitarist Niladri Kumar joined the quintet for Lloyd’s “Hymn To The Mother,” in which the songwriter recited some spoken word.
Percussionist and longtime Grateful Dead member Mickey Hart considered Hussain a best friend after knowing each other for decades and collaborating on his inaugural Planet Drum project and album in the early ’90s. He was joined by Fleck, three drummers (Harland, Gilmore and Steve Smith, who all switched to percussion roles) as well as talking drummer and Hart musical associate Siriku Adepoju. The six concluded the first half with Hart and Hussain’s uplifting “Resilience.”
Dancers Laurel Keen and Brent Conway switched up the offerings by opening the second half with the athletically elegant “MA” by Alonzo King Ballet and Hussain. (He and the San Francisco-based choreographer first partnered in the early 2000s, and King’s LINES Ballet company will pay tribute to him in May by revisiting their “Scherezade” from 2009.)
Saxophonist Joshua Redman performed with Hussain in a unique quartet with vibraphonist Joel Ross and the late bassist Zach Moses Ostroff at Stanford University’s Frost Amphitheatre back in July 2021. His “Zarafah” featured his burnished tone as Third Coast Percussion set up to follow with Hussain’s autobiographical “Murmers In Time.” Salar Nader played tabla for the Third Coast commission, which Hussain was scheduled to debut with the group earlier this year.
Fleck returned for a third time, playing an unnamed étude-like number seated and solo on the back font platform as the Tabla Choir from Hussain’s Institute of Music prepared up front. Their rapturous performance earned the first of three consecutive standing ovations, with duets by Kumar and tabalchi Amit Kavthekar and Krishnan and Indian classical violinist Kala Ramnath also bringing the audience to its feet.
Antonia Minnecola, Hussain’s widow and manager and a trained Kathak dancer, was the penultimate guest and, appropriately, the memorial’s only speaker. She talked of gratitude helping with grief and her husband’s pioneering collaborating with musicians from a myriad of traditions. “He was a universalist,” she pointed out.
The night ended with Ramnath, Krishnan, Sewell, Smith (this time on drum kit) and saxophonist George Brooks revisiting the title track to Hussain’s 1987 album Making Music. It was a peaceful conclusion to a sublime gathering, which Minnecola summarized perfectly moments earlier:
“And tonight, I think we stormed the gates of Heaven,” she declared. DB
“She said, ‘A lot of people are going to try and stop you,’” Sheryl Bailey recalls of the advice she received from jazz guitarist Emily Remler (1957–’90). “‘They’re going to say you slept with somebody, you’re a dyke, you’re this and that and the other. Don’t listen to them, and just keep playing.’”
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