[ Sarode playing ] ♪♪ -[Narrator] An Indian proverb says, "We will know our ends by our beginnings."

♪♪ Alam Khan is the grandson of Acharya Baba Allauddin Khan... ♪♪ ...the son of legendary sarode Maestro Ali Akbar Khan.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -When I was 13, 14 years old, I think I started listening to my father's recordings.

♪♪ The melodies, the sounds, the kind of vibrations that you'd feel inside, the moods it brought out.

That just has never left me.

It was like recognizing an old friend.

♪♪ ♪♪ My whole life is to play this music and try to keep it alive.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -[Narrator] Young Alam Khan has just returned from his first solo tour of India.

This time Alam's father, Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, remained at the family home in California.

Ali Akbar Khan originally emigrated from India to the U.S. in the 1960s to teach North Indian classical music and to increase its audience.

♪♪ Sarode Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, lovingly referred to as Baba or Khansahib, has lived half his life in California.

He continues to teach at the Ali Akbar College of Music.

Today, Khansahib celebrates his 85th birthday with his students at the college.

Jazz saxophonist John Handy is a good friend of Khansahib.

Their musical partnership marked the first time that a master of the sarode had collaborated with a jazz musician.

-In '71, Jerry Pearlman called me to come and play with Khansahib.

I knew about the school here, but I'd never been here.

So, I came over to Khansahib's apartment.

Here I've got my sax, I'm a saxophone player, I'm an alto player, and then I had to sit on the floor.

And everybody was comfortable, and I was young enough you could just hear the bones crack a little.

[ Laughter ] ♪♪ ♪♪ It was his look, it was the way he played, the way he approached his music.

He would drive me insane in a beautiful, spiritual way just with (mimics sarode) the crying on that instrument.

And it crying, but in a happy cry.

-Yes.

Yes.

-You know, it wasn't sobbing.

It was beautiful spiritually, exuding and coming out, and I learned a lot.

I'm still learning from him.

♪♪ ♪♪ -[Narrator] Carlos Santana has been inspired by Khansahib's music since the 1960s.

-Notes are people, you must visit them once in a while.

Your dad can visit the note.

He can carry a melody.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ I wanted to know how was he getting certain sounds.

The sound is like singing water, and it's got a lot of blues in it, also.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -He's one of the few who have, like Bob Marley and Coltrane, the Universal Tone.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ All people have to deal with the same two things, love and fear.

That's all there is.

And your dad just goes straight to the love.

He's the sound of compassion.

I have no problem equating, putting videos with Desmond Tutu, Mandela, Mother Teresa, and the Dalai Lama and I would put Ali Akbar Khan's music 'cause it's the same tone.

There's people who came to this planet only to heal and to enlighten.

If you go to the desert, you're gonna need water.

You have champagne and wine and beer and tequila but you're gonna need water, man.

That's what his sound sounds like, the sound of singing water.

♪♪ -[Narrator] North Indian classical music began as a purely spiritual music.

Later, it was brought to the royal courts.

The Mughal Emperor Akbar was one of the early royal patrons of the music.

The Khan family's musical heritage began with the legendary 16th century musician Mian Tansen, who is entombed in the city of Gwalior.

Tansen was one of the nine jewels of Emperor Akbar's court.

The fort at Emperor Akbar's Fatehpur Sikri played a key part in Tansen's career.

♪♪ It is said that he could control rain and fire through his artistry.

Legend has it that Tansen died singing the fire-evoking Raag Deepak.

♪♪ From the time of Tansen, knowledge of this North Indian music was carefully guarded, taught and passed down solely through blood relations.

♪♪ Years of sacrifice and searching led Alam's grandfather, Acharya Baba Allauddin Khan, to his true guru, Mohammad Wazir Khan, a direct descendant of Tansen.

Allauddin Khan taught the music to Alam's father, Ali Akbar Khan, in the family's Maihar home.

♪♪ Khansahib now teaches Alam at the family home in San Anselmo, California.

(singing) ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -[Alam] It's a very difficult raga and I never tried to play it so I ask you permission first if you think I am able to play.

-[Alam] But only you can tell me that.

(Alam chuckling) -[Narrator] In his twenties, Ali Akbar Khan became court musician to the Maharajah of Jodhpur.

The Maharajah both enjoyed and reverenced Khan's playing, bestowing on him the title Ustad, or master musician.

Prince Dalip Singh recalls Ustad's tenure in the court.

-Ustad came to Jodhpur when my eldest brother was the Maharajah of Jodhpur.

For connoisseurs and people and the Maharajahs who were really interested in good music, good classical music, they looked around for a person who could really be a gem in his court.

And I think Ustad also in those days, being young but being a maestro, my brother fell for him and that's how Ustad was invited to come to Jodhpur.

♪♪ My brother was not a heavy drinker or anything like that.

But once in a while he would just get into the mood and take a drink.

And one evening Ustad was playing and I think my brother got into the mood of having a drink while he was listening.

And Ustad, sort of while playing, he opened his eyes and looked up and he saw the glass in my brother's hand and he put the sarode down.

And when my brother asked him, "What's happened?"

He says, "Your highness, these two things don't go together.

Either you listen to the music or then you enjoy your drink."

And my brother immediately apologized, threw the glass away, and he says, "Please continue playing."

♪♪ ♪♪ -[Narrator] Alam's grandfather, Acharya Baba Allauddin Khan, was born in 1862.

During his 110-year life span, he learned to play over 200 instruments.

He spent entire days in deep practice.

Maestro Ali Akbar Khan's musical training began as a small child.

For 20 years, Khansahib studied and practiced for up to 18 hours a day.

Ali Akbar Khan had a mausoleum built for his father and mother next to the family home in Maihar.

It is considered a holy place.

♪♪ Sri Hemendra Sen, or Hemen Babu, is one of the greatest instrument makers in India.

He has made instruments for the Khan family for many years.

Alam's sarode was made by Hemen Babu.

Hemen Babu remembers meeting Alam's grandfather in 1945.

Acharya Baba Allauddin Khan was considered to be more than just a musician.

He had reached the same state through his dedication to music that saints or sages acquire through meditation.

In India, they call this devotion sadana.

Hemen Babu says that Acharya Baba Allauddin Khan modified the measurements of the sarode, standardizing its shape and size and endowing the instrument with richer, more beautiful sonic capabilities.

♪♪ -[Alam] The expectations I have for myself are probably higher than I can meet.

People say, "Do you know how famous your father is and how great he is?"

They have so much love for this music and for my father.

And then they say, "We're counting on you, and we hope that you will keep this music alive after your father.

We're all counting on you."

♪♪ ♪♪ -[Narrator] Blues slide guitarist Derek Trucks has often taken time out from his recording and touring schedule to attend Khansahib's concerts and classes.

-What do you find unique about Indian classical music compared to other musics?

-I think for me, it's the fact that it's had so much time to distill and be passed down.

It's traditional, but you can hear that every generation has taken it just a small step forward, you know, but it stays true to it.

A lot of the music, especially in this country, it hasn't had that much time to really get there.

♪♪ Playing the sarode just, it helped me with the slide that much more.

I could figure things out a little differently.

You know, it's just different ways to look at the same problem.

It made it that much easier and that much more comfortable to play those melodies on the guitar.

♪♪ I remember I was sitting in on an instrumental class, and there was maybe a sarode player in the second row.

His main, is it the Sa string?

It was flat.

And I remember your father.

There were 30 instruments in the room.

He was like, "You!

Tune that string!"

(both laughing) I was just so thrilled.

I was thrilled by his ears, first of all, and then the fact that there was just no -- he wasn't worried about offending anyone.

It had to be done.

(laughing) It was like, "That string must be tuned now."

♪♪ -[Alam] There's been many times in my life that I've thought about doing something else, giving up.

That this music was beautiful, and I loved it, and I was connected to it, and I had an ability to play and learn.

But was it enough?

♪♪ Difficulties and obstacles in life, they arise to test you.

♪♪ Are you gonna give up, or are you going to work through it?

♪♪ -[Narrator] Alam's mother, Mary Khan, is a source of love, serenity, and support for Alam.

She helps to give Alam the strength he needs to play the music.

-The challenge for Khansahib, I mean, besides the challenge everyone has which is to learn something and again to keep going, to do your best, to be talented, that's huge, is Khansahib had to bring it out of India.

His father wanted him to do that.

He told him, "Go spread it from as far as you can spread it."

-[Narrator] In 1955, at the request of master violinist Lord Yehudi Menuhin, Maestro Ali Akbar Khan was invited to perform in Europe and in the United States.

Khansahib performed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Later, he became the first Indian classical musician to perform on Alistair Cooke's Omnibus television show.

Khansahib also recorded the Western world's first LP of Indian classical music.

-So, that was an entirely different type of a challenge, especially back in 1955 when traveling was difficult even, and no one knew of it.

People would ask him, "Where is India?

Do you have tigers everywhere and lions?"

Like Africa, you know?

I mean, they didn't know any difference.

So, that was Khansahib's huge challenge along with other musicians that came at that time.

-[Narrator] Alam's mother, Mary Khan, is the director of the Ali Akbar College of Music.

Mary recalls the early days of the college.

-I came five years after the college began.

In my day, people left home.

Some with the blessings of their parents, some not, and made their way and would camp in the hills.

♪♪ The way we were taught the music, if it was played in tune, in rhythm and correctly, the movement of the notes, it tuned you up.

It actually created health, good health, mental and physical.

And he would talk about the power of each note and they had uniquely different power.

And so he'd say, "This note will make you feel peaceful."

And so, he'd sing a note.

And you were like, "Ah, that's nice.

Yeah, I feel good."

And then he'd work it up to where this note will make you cry.

And you're like (laughing) And sure enough he'd sing a note and hold it and you started crying.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -[Alam] Each raga is a different city or a state, and your teacher is showing you all the different roads by teaching you each line in the composition.

It's like looking at a map.

"Oh, I take this road to get to this road."

♪♪ That's why there is so much emphasis put on learning compositions and so many of them so that you don't get lost.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -[Narrator] Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart remembers Khansahib's wide ranging impact on the music of the 1960s.

-It wasn't so much about the note.

It was about the emotional content behind the note.

And it was like a deeper meaning.

There was something deeper than the sound of the note.

It was a spiritual reverberation, if you will.

Any time music captures your imagination there's power there, and we knew it, we felt the power.

We didn't know how to deal with it.

It was like electricity.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ And of course he had a reputation.

We knew that this perhaps was the greatest living musician in front of you.

And so his reputation preceded him.

You know, I know Jerry was listening to Khansahib.

You know, I mean he was listening to him, as I was listening.

We would sit there all night listening, you know, to Indian music.

Did it work its way into Jerry's playing?

You bet.

The Grateful Dead would not be the Grateful Dead if Khansahib didn't come over here with the College of Music.

For instance, I can tell you personally that's the way it is.

All of the instruments that were taught at the school have now kind of filtered out and they have taken on other meanings in our musical language.

And that's what he really wanted to do.

He's a pollinator.

That's what he does.

He goes from one thing to another and he pollinates and things grow and then they go in their own ways.

And I think that he really -- kind of like the Johnny Appleseed thing because, you know, if he keeps planting musical seeds, things will grow.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -My father was 60 when he had me, so all the other parents of my friends didn't have parents that old and the age difference between my father and my mother, yeah, that was totally different.

It was never strange to me because I knew how much they loved each other.

My friends would always go skiing and camping, and doing sports with their father and things like that and I didn't have that relationship with my father.

♪♪ What we did have with my father, the music, just who he was and such powerful energy.

And when he went away it made me tremendously sad.

I remember every time we'd go to the airport, every time I'd say bye to him I just remember I'd be crying, and I'd always tell myself, "I'm not gonna cry this time."

♪♪ My biggest fear my whole life was that he was gonna be ill. And whenever he was ill, I felt pretty sick, too.

And vice versa when I felt sick he seemed to be upset and sick, too.

We had this connection like that, I think.

When my father first got sick it was extremely hard to deal with because it was unknown.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -[Narrator] Alam has returned to India for a concert tour.

On this trip, Alam will give a solo performance at the prestigious Dover Lane Music Festival in Calcutta.

The young musician is anxious to make a good impression on the Indian public.

He wants to make his father proud.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -[Alam] It's hard to be a performing musician.

I always felt okay 'cause I was with my father, and it was such a great experience and opportunity for me to play with him and travel with him.

♪♪ ♪♪ Now playing by myself and touring, it's hard.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ You practice all these years, and you get to a certain level and you feel you can express and play this and that and these kinds of things, and when you get on stage, if you don't do it in that time then you feel less than what you are.

♪♪ When I get nervous before concerts, I try to remember what my father always says to me.

He tells me to take it out of my mind and just enjoy and play the music, be free, play like a lion.

♪♪ ♪♪ -[Narrator] The tabla is the percussion instrument used to accompany the soloist on sarode.

The tabla is also a solo instrument in its own right.

Master tabla player Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri has taught at the Ali Akbar College of Music since 1981 and has been Khansahib's chief accompanist since then.

He is both a virtuoso soloist and an exquisitely sympathetic accompanist.

♪♪ -Khansahib's music is so powerful, and it's intense, and it's also risky.

♪♪ And Khansahib's music is not only the melodic side but the rhythm side, too.

It's combination of both rhythm and that melody.

It goes so well together.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ In my experience, that every time I used to play with him, it's like from night before or from two nights, I could not sleep properly.

It's not that I was nervous.

I used to always ask myself whether I can do the justice.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -[Narrator] Tabla master Ustad Zakir Hussain was one of the first tabla teachers at the music college.

Known for his intuitive improvisations, the world-class percussionist has accompanied Khansahib on stage many times.

-Every time I played with Khansahib, it was not possible to predict what's coming.

It was possible to predict playing with any other musician that it's going to be any one of this, this, this, this that's gonna come next.

But with Khansahib, you could never predict.

Only when I started playing with Khansahib I started taking chances.

I started trying to do things on stage which would be other than what I arrived on the stage thinking I'm gonna do.

It's not about arriving somewhere.

What do you think when you arrive?

You think about all the fun you had on the way getting there.

That's what's important.

♪♪ -[Narrator] Alam is headed for his family's ancestral home in Maihar.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -[Alam] My father said he used to be able to hear the train 20 minutes or something before it would arrive in town and then 20 minutes after it would leave.

(announcer speaking) You could really hear the sound.

♪♪ ♪♪ Every time I listen to my father or think of my grandfather, I think of this house and this courtyard.

♪♪ Being here without my father has been a little difficult for me this time because every other trip that I've taken here has been with him.

I always feel him with me and I speak to him on the phone when I'm here, but it's different.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ If my father was able to come back to Maihar, I know he would.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ It's hard for me to be here in some ways because I want him to be the person that's here instead of me.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Band ready!

One, two, three, start!

♪♪ ♪♪ -[Narrator] World famous sarode player Ustad Aashish Khan is Alam's oldest brother, Khansahib's first child.

-I know my father has sacrificed a lot in his life.

He started his school, and he definitely sacrificed not going to India because he had many concerts lined up at those days, but he refused, and he stayed back in America to continue teaching his students.

He used to put all his earnings to the school, all his benefit concerts.

♪♪ His students, they like him as a human being, as a guru, of course, they like him, love him.

But he has, he knows to share their problems.

He understands and feels other's pain.

♪♪ And his music touches the soul.

It goes just like an arrow going through your heart.

♪♪ -[Narrator] Annette Bauer emigrated from Switzerland to study music with Khansahib.

♪♪ -Khansahib invited me over to the house to show me how to cook dal.

He had the same kind of approach and perfection to the cooking that he had in his music.

I tried to make the same recipe, and then he came back the next time, he said, "Your dal, it was okay, but no life in it."

(laughing) He would say the same thing about the music.

Like when he's like, "Play your line.

It's okay, but third-rate musician."

[ Laughter ] -I guess that's like a lifelong struggle to try to figure out what is that that he means.

Like, what is missing, and how can I put it in there, no matter if it's cooking the dal or if it's playing the music?

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Indian classical music is like any other music.

As a spiritual practice it's a worship.

You're worshiping your teacher.

You're worshiping your teacher's teacher.

You're worshiping a higher power.

We believe that this music comes from the divine.

♪♪ ♪♪ When I asked my father about religion and what our religion is, he always says to me the music is our religion.

♪♪ ♪♪ I think that I have a lot to learn left in my life.

I don't feel like I understand myself or what will really, you know, what really will give me peace in my life.

♪♪ ♪♪ Going to the Maa Sharda temple and paying my respects and worshiping there is probably the most special and spiritual place that I've been to in my life.

And for people all around India that are devotees, it's a pilgrimage.

♪♪ To reach the temple on top of this mountain you have to climb thousands of steps.

My grandfather used to do that every day if not many times a week almost as worship just to make that journey all the way up to the top.

He wrote wordings to songs that he composed that had Maa Sharda's name in it.

And he felt a very strong spiritual devotion to her.

♪♪ Whenever I go to worship the goddess Maa Sharda, I always pray for one thing and that's just the protection of my family and loved ones.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ He just taught until the end, and that's what he wanted to do.

He always said, "I want to teach and play music until the day I die."

And the night before he died, we knew that it was getting bad, and we kind of were telling the students, "If you want to see him that you should come now."

This man who can't even lift his head, he's not even saying very many words to anybody but he starts to sing.

And then he said, "Okay, everybody sing.

I'm teaching."

♪♪ For about a half an hour or 45 minutes he was teaching and the whole room was singing.

And there were some people, you know, tears in their eyes and I was sitting next to him and just trying to sing and yet it was so emotional that, you know, it was hard for me to sing anything, but I was trying to sing in tune because that's what you do when you're in front of my father, you do your best.

♪♪ ♪♪ To be surrounded by so many people that loved my father during this difficult time has been pretty incredible.

In one way, it was hard because I didn't have much time to myself to be quiet and just feel what has just happened.

It's such a huge moment in my life, the one that I hoped never would come and never wanted to put a time on it or even think about that.

But I did think about it all of the time.

But in other ways, it was great because there was so much love and support coming in to me that I think it helped me in ways, too.

But when people would leave, you know, at night, I'd break down.

And it would really just hit me really hard.

♪♪ ♪♪ I feel like some kind of strength has been given to me and I'm grateful for that.

If it's my father wherever he is giving me strength and telling me that it's okay, I'm so grateful to him.

He always told me things were gonna be okay and that God would bless me and he would and that it would be all right.

I think he's helping me now telling me that it's okay.

♪♪ Some days are okay.

Some days are very hard.

Some days I just don't even know what I'm feeling, I'm just going through so much.

♪♪ I honestly thought maybe I would just take some time after my father passed and not really do anything, but I ultimately felt that, and after speaking to some other people, too, I felt it was the right thing to do to just start teaching right away.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ I always felt like I have a lot of responsibility and people have always said to me, "It's gonna be on you next."

My father was bigger than any person and it will take many people to carry that responsibility.

♪♪ The gift that he's given me musically I'm so grateful for.

That's what my life revolves around.

That's what I love.

That's what I want to do is play music.

♪♪ I'm not the next Ali Akbar Khan.

There will never be another Ali Akbar Khan.

I'm Alam Khan, and that's what I'm going to try to realize in my life and be okay with that.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Song ends, cheers and applause ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪