Jazzing it up ...
By Pamela D'Mello
dmello.pam...@gmail.com
Tucked away on the first floor of a nondescript apartment
block, surrounded by lush green paddy fields is the unlikely
venue for Jazz Goa's recording studio. Nothing much to look
at, until musician/producer Colin D'Cruz plays recordings of
some of the new talent he has discovered and your mood gets
thoughtful. Coming out of the speakers are songs and voices
and instrumentation that could match any of the new talent
emerging out of the unknown worldwide.
There's twenties something Neil Gomes, a multi-instrument
player, who plays saxophone and guitar with equal ease, and a
good voice to go with it. "Neil's song Perhaps, uploaded
onto Soundclick, one of the internet sites for new talent,
climbed to number one on the site among hundreds of songs
uploaded there", says D'Cruz. Now based in Mumbai, the young
musician is active in the live and recorded music industry of
that city.
Nor is Gomes the only young artiste to find his place in Jazz
Goa's talent search. Twenty seven other singers and
musicians have recorded original jazz tracts on the Jazz Goa
CD. There's professional singer Danielle Rebello, whose
voice uploaded on the internet got her an offer to record in
Spain. Colin sees promise in many of his young protegees.
For nine months in 2010 Colin put his love for jazz and
building talent by producing and running the Jazz Goa, slot
on FM Rainbow in Goa. "I showcased purely local talent on
the show which ran from 10-10.30 pm every Monday, just to
prove to station managers that local talent can produce good
music if encouraged". Most station managers blindly plug for
Bollywood and international artistes, is his complaint.
Colin's song Smoking Chutney was nominated for the 2010 IMA
awards in the world fusion category, with the song picked out
for the guitar solo performance by guitarist Elvis Lobo.
While new talent is slowly finding its space via
the internet, it is Goa's small but vibrant live
jazz music scene that has been creating a buzz for
several years now.
The Saturday Nite Market in Arpora, North Goa, has emerged as
one of the prime venues for jazz and experimental music.
While the bazaar -- originally designed by a German settler
Ingo Grill -- runs as a well organised sprawling market of
stalls, offering wares from shell earrings to leather boots,
to Indian handicrafts, the heart of the market is its live
stage, just off a buzzing food court.
Here, in high season, when the open air market attracts an
eclectic crowd of foreign and discerning Indian tourists,
Western settlers and leftover hippies, the ground level stage
becomes the setting for a series of live acts each Saturday.
So while fire eaters and African dancers do their spot acts
under starry night skies, there's a real cooler vibe when the
musicians get on stage. "I've heard some of the best music
play at the Saturday nite market. Musicians from all over
the world, passing through, will just land up, contact the
organisers, and offer to play just for the joy of playing to
an appreciative chilled out global audience and that
strangely produces some of the most inspired music, out of
the mainstream, and totally mind blowing", says hotelier
Francis de Braganca.
Local jazz musicians love playing at the market, because the
audience that gathers around the stage is genuinely
appreciative and the ambiance is every musicians' dream.
"It's a scene that I doubt happens anywhere else in the
world" adds Braganca. Two kilometres away, Mackey's nite
market, also on Saturdays in the tourist season, runs similar
gigs that offers a stage for jazz and other musicians.
Another favourite jazz concert venue that's heating
up the scene is Goa Chitra's small amphitheatre in
coastal Benaulim in south Goa. Every week from
October to March, the organic farm cum ethnographic
museum, hosts a jazz/ fusion/ experimental group
for a small audience of around 200. "We keep it
small, but musicians especially love the intimacy
of the place" says Victor Hugo Gomes, proprietor
and curator.
Last year, Goa Chitra had John Law's Art of Sound Trio play
in Goa, just after their return from the North Sea Jazz
Festival, in Rotterdam. In November this year, Blues diva
Danna Gillespie is signed on for a fund-raiser concert. This
year on, artistes will be encouraged to give small workshops
as well.
There's a limited following for jazz, and the workshops are
meant to raise the bar on appreciation and allow young
musicians to benefit from the exposure.
As an event organiser, Gomes has always been more keen on the
serious experimental side of jazz and disdains turning jazz
music into family and tourist entertainment. Gomes still
rues the fact that the Jazz Yatra wound down completely.
"Jazz is serious creative music, its a group of
musicians communicating with each other through
their music to create innovative sounds. You can't
do that if people are chatting and children running
around", says Gomes. What annoys him more, and a
lot of jazz musicians will concur, is that hotels
and restaurants pay musicians a pittance. Jazz
bands require a minimum of four musicians on stage,
and with hotels paying less and less for a night's
performance, sometimes as low as Rs 500, jazz bands
have had to disband, emerge as soloists or duos,
killing the magic of the jazz band.
That is largely the story of Mumbai's once thriving jazz band
scene that played in hotels like the Oberoi and the Taj.
While many of the greats of the swinging sixties have passed
on, some of their younger followers have relocated to Goa,
some returning to ancestral homes, as jazz warriors effecting
a resurgence in Goa's global tourist village. Steve
Sequeira, Mac Dourado, George Fernandes, Carlos Monteiro,
Carlos Gonsalves, Lester Godinho and Angelie Alvares, have
done their bit, playing jazz gigs in hotels and restaurants.
Victor Gomes can take credit for organising the first Great
Music Revival in the nineties, that brought on stage, the
region's best known jazz musicians from the late Chris Perry,
to Anibal Castro and Braz Gonsalves. The latter proved that
India's jazz virtuosos could still fill an outdoor venue,
when he gave a memorable performance at a 2011 concert with
Louis Banks in Panjim's Kala Academy, drawing flawlessly
clear notes from his saxophone.
Gonsalves's wife Yvonne still entrances audiences
as she sings with Jazz Junction each Friday night
at the Goa Marriott and at Poco Loco restaurant in
Baga. "I could never give up Jazz music. I'd love
to go on and on and its great to sing in Goa", says
the soft spoken Yvonne, who definitely picked up a
love for jazz music from her late father, the
legendary Chic Chocolate.
Jazz as entertainment in Goa's many restaurants may not quite
be at the creative cutting edge of music, but it still gives
off great vibes, creates a commercial opening for musicians,
and when a dedicated audience follows, the jazz club scene
that emerges is no less stimulating or creative.
Jazz nights with Colin D'Cruz's Jazz Junction at Poco Loco is
one of the most happening venues for jazz during tourist
season. Diners, mainly middle aged western tourists, who
return year after year, enjoy the drink and food and imbibe
equally of the music. "For the Poco Loco gigs, my good
friend Bob Tinker, plays a mean trumpet, joining us every
year for a couple of months, leaving his own jazz club in
France to enjoy the jazz scene in Goa" says Colin.
Colin swears that Goa is emerging as the new hub
for live jazz music in India. At Stone House in
Candolim, one could almost believe that.
Thrice a week, Pascoal Fernandes, strums his guitar playing
jazz, soft rock and retro melodies for an audience of British
long stay visitors who are regulars at the garden restaurant
set in an old Indo-Portuguese villa with an old world charm
about it. Pascoal is a veteran with three decades of playing
in jazz bands that graced Mumbai's five star hotels, and his
virtuosity with the guitar are proof.
Owner Chris Fernandes is proud that Stone House's reputation
for its music is as acclaimed as for its food and atmosphere.
"Musicians from among the guests, will often get on stage and
jam up. There are regulars like David Peterson, Elvis Rumiao
and Tom Lee who perform here, besides some of the guests
themselves" says Chris. No dance music, no rock-n-roll at
this restaurant. Stone House is oriented strictly towards
jazz and the Blues and soft rock.
Jazz Inn in Cavelosim, south Goa is another restaurant run by
a lover of the music. Owner Chris Pereira, a former
saxophone player, says some of the best shows at his eatery
are given by tourists, who simply jam together on the
instruments kept on stage.
"Some of our magical nights are when George Hamilton, a
tourist and musician, plays his trumpet and jams with local
musicians to create a great atmosphere united by music and
camaraderie that is pretty special and quite essential to any
jazz club", says Pereira. Wednesdays and Saturday nights are
reserved for blues and jazz, often so full that Chris has to
turn down table bookings.
It is this sort of not so insignificant audience for jazz
music, that some club and restaurant owners are chasing, when
they set up special jazz nights. Pianist Xavier Pires with
his small jazz group plays Thursdays at the Casino Carnaval.
The Pentagon restaurant in Majorda, south Goa chases a small
audience, but has an unlikely group of jazz musicians who jam
up to play once a week. The group of jazz musicians include
a priest, a cardiologist, a bank clerk and a farmer!
As with all businesses, they wax and wane, some shut down,
some stagger along, some struggle to build a "scene". Baga's
Take 5 club has a tepid on-off scene, while Jazz Corner in
Candolim, under a new management has had a change of
character, switching to Rajasthani folk dances!
Restaurants that once featured jazz nights move over to other
genres in search of a paying clientele. And musicians do
realise that jazz has to compete with DJ dance music, techno,
rock, reggae, retro, Latino and standard pop for space.
Despite this, jazz has its niche and lovers of the genre are
keen to hold that space and even expand it.
Heritage Jazz -- a concept that married jazz music
and heritage architecture in a colonial mansion in
Panjim's Campal quarter -- has seen dozens of
successful concerts over the past decade.
Non-professional pianist and owner Armando
Gonsalves, drove the concept of holding balcony and
courtyard performances by foreign jazz groups that
became hugely popular. Gonsalves is now attempting
to marry Konkani lyrics and jazz to recreate
Konkani jazz.
Nobody has forgotten that regional Konkani music got its
greatest all time hits when jazz composer Chris Perry teamed
up with singer Lorna Cordeiro in the sixties. "It's really
the way forward. Someday a Konkani song could win a Grammy
award. That is why I have convinced the five Monserrate
brothers of Mumbai to regroup as a band," says Gonsalves.
First published in SOUNDBOX (Mumbai).
Pamela D'Mello can be contacted on +91-9850461649. See also
http://pameladmello.wordpress.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/pameladmello
