“When we are performing on stage, in composing mode or creating mode, we are basically having a conversation,” says renowned tabla player, Zakir Hussain, of his bandmates, banjo legend Béla Fleck, the great double bassist Edgar Meyer, and bansuri player Rakesh Chaurasia. “So the music emerges as we speak.”
Their collaborative album As We Speak won two Grammy awards, one for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album and another for Best Global Music Performance for “Pashto”. As We Speak showcases the quartet’s breathtaking abilities as instrumentalists and underscores the wide range of influences at their command. Across a dozen songs, they glide easily between the cerebral complexity of Indian rhythm and the gut-level groove of a funky bass line, sounding equally at home with the rigors of bluegrass.