My earliest memory of Aamir Zaki is foggy. But this much I remember: He came to my school when I was very, very young.
On an acoustic guitar and I immediately knew what I wanted. I wanted a guitar and I wanted to play like him. How ignorant of me.
Many years later, in 2009-10, I was part of a blues-rock band called Spoonful in college. Someone told us Zaki was looking for some guys to play with. He wanted to start performing again. And that person had told him about my band.
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Zaki graciously agreed to come jam with us. He brought a small Roland amp with him, too small to cut through the drums and the large amps we'd piled up in a rather small room at my friend's house.
But Zaki didn't need a large amplifier. He didn't even need any pedals or processors. He just plugged his strat into the small Roland contraption and blew our minds.
In consequent jam sessions, we arranged for a bigger Fender amplifier for him. He would gleefully turn it all the way up. We all probably lost a bit of our hearing in those jams. Just as well. We may never ever hear something like that again. I will certainly never hear another guitar player like him.
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There's so much that will be written about him in the coming days. About his ability to serve the song, to let it rip when he wanted to. He was Pakistan's greatest guitar hero, our Jimi Hendrix, our Stevie Ray, our troubled, enigmatic rockstar.
My band and I saw his demons too. We knew he was a misplaced genius. He refused to compromise on his music and self even when he fell on hard times.
We could tell that his famous friends were wary of his eccentricities. They wanted someone reliable, someone who fit the mould of the corporate-sponsored cupcake that mainstream music had become.
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I’m glad he eventually featured in Coke Studio. But when I saw him sitting there playing a humbucker guitar as opposed to the shrieking single-coil strat he loved, poker-faced, unsmiling, I knew he wasn’t really there. He didn’t deserve to be either.
He deserved to tour the world, to record dozens of incredible albums like Signature. I knew he had these songs in him that he couldn’t wait for the world to hear. We were privileged to hear them, unaffected by the glam of the stage, at my friend’s house.
We would be in awe of his ability, even when he would be lecturing us on the lack of our own. But he never really put us down. He never told me how bad a player I was. On the contrary, he gave me one of his guitars. Just like that.
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We were driving back home from a gig and he asked me if I liked the guitar. I told him I thought it was great and he just handed it to me. Keep it. He later joked how he would not sign it because I’d sell it for a fortune after he died. How ignorant of him.
Ali Haider Habib was the Senior Assistant Editor of the Herald between April 2016 and April 2019. He currently works for Justice Project Pakistan and moonlights as a musician. He tweets @haiderhabiA seventh-generation sitar player, Waqas Hussain has been acquainted with the instrument all his life. Belonging to Senia Gharana, he has seen his forefathers carry on the legacy and keep the tradition and the sound of sitar alive for decades.
“My great-great-grandfather Muhammad Khan Sahib used to go from Jaipur to Kolkata to Bombay and beyond to perform at festivals known as Dangals back in the day. He was quite well-known. After him, his son Habib Khan took over the responsibility, followed by his son Fida Hussain - who happens to be my uncle, ” said Waqas.
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“They all played sitar professionally and continued the legacy. By then, they were already in Pakistan. My father Imdad Hussain also did a lot of work for the industry and is quite renowned for his classical music.”
Now a renowned young sitarist himself, Waqas joins the league of extraordinary gentlemen and carries on the tradition. While he has been playing for longer, it was Sounds of Kolachi where he first turned heads.
The 10-piece ensemble was formed in 2014 with an intention to offer a platform and equal footing to all members and instruments. Instruments such as sitar or sarangi weren’t less valued than an electric guitar or the drums. This mentality led to success of each member of Sounds of Kolachi, one of which is Waqas himself.
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“People have a general perception of a sitarist producing boring music. I desperately wanted to change that perception about this beautiful instrument.”
The blues and jazz influence on Ahsan Bari-led ensemble, shades of Sufi poetry packaged in prog-rock, all informed and complemented each other, allowing even Waqas’ sitar a freedom to delve into all genres and emotions. And traditions and legacy aside, this is exactly what Waqas intends to achieve with his music.
“My desire is to make music that people can listen to anywhere rather than having to find a particular place or setting.”
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It’s a fascinating approach as most classical instruments including sitar are played in particular settings. There is a certain ritual to it. Waqas, therefore, wants to break that wall down and go beyond it. Perhaps this is why his performances, be it solo or collaborative, have been spectacular and memorable. It’s the chameleon-like transformation and amalgamation into any given genre that makes him stand out.
With this mindset, he listens to any and all kinds of music, always keeping an ear open to absorb new sounds. “For me, there is nobody better than Mehdi Hasan in Ghazals, Mekaal Hassan Band in bands and Rahat Fateh Ali khan sahib among vocalists; these are my personal favorites from Pakistan. From international artists, I admire A.R Rahman and Michael Jackson a lot. I like to listen to everything, ” said the young breakout sitarist.
“Similarly, I collaborate with any artist whose music I like. I have also done a lot of international collaborations with musicians from the US, UK, France, Australia and Middle East. The goal is always to explore music that is different.”
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This quest for something that hadn’t been done before led Waqas to introduce electric sitar in Pakistan when he played it at a popular branded music show a few years ago. He has also toured the US with Sounds of Kolachi when they participated in the Center Stage program. Now Waqas walks solo with a focus on elevating not only himself as a musician, but also sitar as an instrument.
Waqas believes a musician must have honesty and basic ethics, followed by strong will and passion. Patience, too, is an important trait as it may take “a few days to even weeks” to produce a single piece of music.
The seventh-generation sitarist is currently working on multiple projects, including an instrumental album with a mix of originals, covers and a Sufi medley. He also recently worked on a RedBull 60-second solo.
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“I never get satisfied with what I produce, even when I’m playing solo. I felt the same when working with RedBull. They asked me to improvise for one minute. Improvising is what I do but this time I didn’t want to improvise. RedBull is a huge platform and I wanted to compose something special for it and know exactly what and how I was going to play.”
Waqas continued, “Audience is my biggest priority when making music, so I have to take them into consideration. I want to simplify it for the audience because the instrument that I play is very complex and people don’t have much understanding of sitar.”
The sitarist then consulted his father, who was shocked and asked whether a minute-long sitar solo even exists. “He said that it’s impossible to play sitar for just one minute, that sitar is an instrument that needs at least an hour. I told him yes but in one minute, I want to showcase all the pillars and basics of sitar, so he recommended me the Bilaskhani Todi raag.”
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Thus, Waqas’ 60-second solo is an interpretation of raag Bilaskhani Todi and he’s sure the audience will enjoy it. “I believe people will be able to connect with this raag the way I connected to it.”
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