India's jazz community working to expand the music's fan base
India's jazz community is staging a revival while struggling to broaden listeners' taste, writes Victoria Burrows
When thinking of Indian music, the first sounds that come to mind will probably be big Bollywood numbers, or perhaps the plucking of a sitar. It most likely won't be jazz, even though it has been part of the country's musical landscape for almost a century.
The first jazz in India was performed by African-American bands in Bombay in the 1920s. These inspired Goan musicians, who then worked jazz into the soundtrack of Hindi films. The following decades also saw a rich artistic exchange in the other direction, with musical greats such as Ravi Shankar, John Coltrane and John McLaughlin pioneering a fusion between Indian traditional music and jazz.
However, about five years ago, the jazz scene in India stagnated, and the trombones, drums and saxophones so key to jazz became largely silent. Long-standing hotel jazz bars closed, the few remaining bands were reduced to performing covers of the most well-known songs, and earlier jazz festivals petered out to silence.
There is not much of an audience any more for jazz music, and the audience that exists is still looking to hear 'Satin Doll' and 'Take the A Train'
But now a few passionate aficionados - musicians, record label owners, event organisers and fans meeting in living rooms - are working to get those double basses back in full swing.
In Mumbai, Sunil Sampat, Pradip Bhatia and Apurva Agarwal started Jazz Addicts in 2012 with the aim of bringing the best classic acoustic jazz to India. They organised two international jazz festivals that year (in Mumbai and Delhi). Then in November last year they expanded to include Pune. Mainly American bands participated in these JUS' JAZZ festivals.
"There are about 400 to 500 musicians in India playing jazz in its loosely defined form, but the trend here is about a decade behind the US," says Sampat, an engineer who also plays jazz occasionally.
