Editing Alla Rakha (section)

==Career==
Ustad Alla Rakha began his career as an accompanist in [[Lahore]] and then as an [[All India Radio]], [[Delhi]] staffer in 1936 but later moved to [[Bombay]] in 1940, playing the station's first ever tabla solo and elevating the instrument's position in the process. Soon after, he also started composing music [[Hindi|for Hindi]] films under the name A. R. Qureshi. He composed for a total of 23 films between 1943 and 1964.<ref name=NYT/>

[[File:Ravi Shankar flier back.jpg|thumb|190px|right|Flyer for an October 1967 concert by Shankar and Rakha (left), held four months after their performance at the [[Monterey Pop Festival]]]]
However, he still played as an accompanist, for soloists like [[Bade Ghulam Ali Khan]], [[Allauddin Khan]], [[Vilayat Khan]], [[Vasant Rai]], [[Ali Akbar Khan]], and [[Ravi Shankar]].<ref name=NYT/> The venerable master achieved world renown as Shankar's chief accompanist during his apex in the 1960s, delighting audiences in the West with his percussive wizardry, not only as an uncanny accompanist with flawless timing and sensitivity but also as a soloist where he was a master of improvisation, a prolific composer and an electric showman.

His musical partnership with Ravi Shankar was particularly successful and lasted nearly three decades, and their legendary and spellbinding performances at the [[Monterey Pop Festival]] in 1967 and the [[Woodstock Festival]] in 1969 served to introduce classical Indian music to general worldwide audiences.<ref name=EB/>

Alla Rakha also was a devoted music teacher. He founded 'Alla Rakha Institute of Music' in [[Mumbai]] in 1985.<ref name=EB/>