This special collaboration between Zakir Hussain, a living master of the 3,000-year-old tabla percussion tradition, and distinguished bassist and 2017 NEA Jazz Master Dave Holland demonstrates the many directions of inspiration between the idioms of jazz and Indian music.

The influence of Indian classical music on jazz is widely known, but fewer people are aware of how jazz influenced the popular music of India. Jazz first came to India by way of the Hollywood musicals of the 1930s and ’40s and quickly influenced the music of India’s burgeoning film industry; the improvisational nature of jazz was familiar to Indian composers and musicians who found a way to incorporate jazz harmonies and chord progressions into their work.