Shaukat Hussain

Gharana (Indian music school): Punjab & Delhi

Teachers: Pandit Hiralal & Mian Qadir Bukhsh

The late Ustad Shaukat Hussain Khan ranked amongst the finest musicians of South Asia. Apart from his prowess over the solo repertoire, the maestro’s forte was his impeccable accompaniment.

(Source: http://www.sadarang.com/Gallery%20Tabla.htm )

_________________________________

?-1995; Punjab tradition

As you can read on Professor Kippen's site he explains that one of his former doctoral students Lowell Lybarger had the good fortune to study with Shaukat Hussain Khan in Lahore.

Sadly, Shaukat Hussain died of a protracted illness in January 1995, right in the middle of Lowell's fieldwork. Nonetheless, Lowell managed to learn wonderful material from this man whom everyone described as a kind and entirely dignified gentleman.

Shaukat Hussain was the accompanist of choice for Pakistan's great vocalists and instrumentalists, and he always offered impeccable support. As a soloist one hears the Delhi roots of his sound mixed with a truly Panjabi sense of rhythmic complexity (he also learned from Qader Bakhsh). One can hear this complexity in the varied internal phrase lengths of pieces and in the tal structures.

An excerpt you can listen on Professor Kippen's website is taken from a solo in Lachmi tal (cf. Lakshmi), but it is not the 18-matra version but a 21-matra version. Shaukat Hussain plays a char-darje-ki-gat (compare this to Nabi Bakhsh's one played by Pawan Kumar Verma).

(Source: http://www.kippen.org/t_masters/shaukat.html )