Jazz is finding newer audiences in India with streaming services making the genre more readily available and musicians reshaping it to make it more accessible.
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In September 2019, multiple Grammy winner Jacob Collier performed in India for the first time to two full-house shows at Mumbai’s NCPA. The London-based contemporary Jazz musician has impressed the likes of Jazz greats such as Herbie Hancock and is signed on by another musical legend — Quincy Jones. When Naveen Deshpande, founder and director of the Mumbai-based lighting design agency, Ground Control, first heard of Collier in 2016 and began organising his India visit, he had no idea that the English multi-instrumentalist would pack in venues with young people from across the country. Collier had managed to draw pre-teens, teens, and possibly the youngest audience that the NCPA had witnessed in years.
Image: Adam Hart.
Collier was relatively unknown in India despite his Grammy wins, but one only had to look at his YouTube channel to understand how he had captured the imagination of the youth. His genre-bending music and indefatigable stage presence turns the idea of Jazz on its head. The 27-year-old child prodigy engages with his audience and (literally) makes them sing to his tune — he did that at the NCPA as well — bringing to stage a showmanship that was, until now, only associated with pop musicians.
An equal music
Jazz, the birthplace of which is New Orleans, taps into other musical styles including blues, ragtime, and march music. Originally performed by African American artistes, its fluidity lends itself to all kinds of experiments and it is this fusion that appeals to musicians in the contemporary Jazz scene across the world. “My introduction to Jazz happened while I was still in school and had just begun learning how to play the guitar. One day, I got talking to Roy Venkatraman (Jazz guitarist) and he gave me a mixtape of Jazz fusion and that hit the sweet spot,” says Mumbai-based composer and Jazz guitarist Dhruv Ghanekar.
Image: Dhruv Ghanekar.
The musician recalls that the mixtape that he received in the early ’90s included music by influential American Jazz guitarists such as Pat Metheny and Steve Khan. “The music changed my concept of how music should sound. Until then, I was a rock and metal head,” adds Ghanekar, who was also one of the founders of Blue Frog, a landmark music venue in Mumbai that hosted Jazz nights over the weekend. On his part, Ghanekar gave back to the next generation by introducing them to some of the best Jazz artistes from India and the rest of the world at Blue Frog. Blue Frog has brought to stage artistes such as Raul Midon from New Mexico, The Shuffle Demons from Canada, and Indian Jazz stars such as Louis Banks. “Today, the problem with the Jazz scene is not as much about the lack of musicians as it is about venues. Mumbai has always had a challenge when it comes to performance spaces,” says Ghanekar.
Holding space
Events such as the World Jazz Festival, launched just ahead of the pandemic in 2020 by Banyan Tree Events, have tried to bring younger audiences closer to the genre in cities such as Mumbai, Pune, and Bengaluru. In its second edition this year, the World Jazz Festival hosted Round Midnight Orchestra, a Jazz festival headliner from New York, among other international acts. Another organisation that is doing noteworthy work is the Bombay Jazz Club, backed by bassist Dee Wood. Young Jazz artistes such as Shreya Bhattacharya have been regulars at events organised by The Bombay Jazz Club, which was formed in 2012, at venues such as Bonobo and BlueBop Cafe in Mumbai. In Pune, the Shisha Jazz Cafe is synonymous with the genre, hosting international artistes such as The Kirk McDonald Generations Quartet from Canada and The Adrian D’Souza Trio from India.
In the capital city, The Piano Man Jazz Club is to the music scene in New Delhi what Blue Frog was to Mumbai. The venue, which has a joint in Gurugram as well, has brought modern Jazz groups such as the Paris-based Antoine Karacostas Trio and Delhi-based Jazz artistes such as Priyana Chauhan to stage, week after week. “Delhi was the last place people would assume that Jazz would make its comeback. The Piano Man Jazz Club created space for Jazz to be honoured and played exclusively. It nurtured audiences in a way no single band could have,” says leading Jazz vocalist and vocal realignment coach, Vasundhara Vee.
Taking Jazz notes
Image: Jishnu Guha.
Music education has also significantly raised the bar for upcoming Jazz artistes in the country. Institutions such as KM Music Conservatoire in Chennai, The True School of Music in Mumbai, Swarnabhoomi Academy Of Music (SAM) close to Chennai, and Global Music Institute (GMI) in Noida have produced some Jazz musicians. While Bhattacharya is an alumna of SAM, Chauhan studied music at GMI. “When I started, there were just about ten Jazz players in Delhi. They were mostly self-taught while a chosen few had the resources to go to expensive music schools abroad. Now there are scores of good players and good singers in Delhi because of schools like GMI who have joined hands with Berklee, bringing the same curriculum into our cities,” adds Vasundhara.
Now streaming
My international Jazz playlist is an endless longlist, but my new international favourite is Samara Joy, a stellar vocalist from the Bronx, who interprets Thelonious Monk and Sarah Vaugh with equal ease. An old favourite from the international scene is Londoner Sarathy Korwar, who released the brilliant collaborative album More Arriving in 2019. There are one too many from my Indian Jazz playlist as well, but here is the shortlist: Sanjay Divecha, Sonia Saigal, Harmeet Manseta, Vasundhara Vee, Adrian D’Souza, Shreya Bhattacharya, Priyana Chauhan, Neha Karode, Shreyas Iyengar, Aditya Balani, Karan Mahajan, Siddharth Jain, Parvati M Krishnan, Anurag Naidu, Mohini Dey, Avishek Dey, Amandeep Singh Soni, Arjun Chakraborty, Mohit Mukhi, and Rahul Wadhwani.