The stories of Zakir Hussain's training are legendary: 40 days of fasting and sleep deprivation capped a childhood of routinely practicing 18 hours per day. His father and guru Alla Rahka (one of India's most distinguished performers himself) taught Hussain the techniques of memorizing ridiculously long strings of percussive permutations and translating them to the tablas. Hussain was extremely young when he began to accompany some of India's most famous musicians, such as Ravi Shan...  [+]