“Believe in the power of Sheeevuh” he drawled, looking up to the heavens at first and then down at me fiddling with my broken drum pedal on the stage. It was five minutes to showtime. “Supernatural things are known to happen” – so I was given to understand by the pianist who was now shrouded in smoke, gazing vacantly at the ashtray set on his piano. But for me, Superglue was good enough – it worked! And so I was initiated into the world of jazz, in the land of Jazz – America.
I spent many years soaking up the music, sitting in at late night jam sessions in Manhattan, hanging out with the Cats, touring with renowned Jazz vocalist and educator Roseanna Vitro.
But back to the here and now –
In Mumbai, International Jazz Day, and what Jazz is to me – a genre of music defined by a particular vocabulary that was born from the struggle to express freedom.
A unique style, where no two musicians while playing, feel exactly the same emotions, or even reach the spontaneous creative moment at exactly the same time. It is precisely this interplay between the performers of differing emotions and staggered peaks of aesthetic creativity that constitutes the essence of Jazz.
What We Truly Know About the History of Jazz
Jazz, as we know, has evolved over time.
Clearly, the idiom which was once a central rhythmic and harmonious facet, has now become one of the elements that has reached far beyond the boundaries of any one pigeon-holed music. To put it simply – Jazz is no longer the sole bag; it is rather one of many tools in a larger and more capacious bag that is cosmic in shape.
Today, in Jazz, the Modern encounters the vibrant Tradition in dynamic fusion, where the performers interactively explore themes of tradition and modernity – and this artistic collaboration between musicians, constitutes a platform for innovative multicultural music.
Right from its inception down to these postmodern times, improvisation has been the underlying factor in Jazz, through all its metamorphoses.
However, postmodern Jazz musicians do not always improvise in the usual sense of variation on an acknowledged base. They begin without any preconceptions, with total spontaneity; a course of thinking with no prior guiding thought, decision with no prior agenda.
No style dominates. There is only a demonstration of timeless eclecticism.
Oh alright. Ok! Let there be no Jazz snobbery here.
“There are elephants on the streets of Bombay ... or so I’ve heard”, he interjected with a loud pompous boom over the Brazilian band playing an infectious samba rhythm at The Zinc Bar - 82 W 3rd St. in Greenwich Village. I sputtered my cheap beer, and blinked at him – a Jazz critic whose travels were limited to the five boroughs of New York City. “Yes!... Yes!...” I replied, raising my glass. I could not lie! I had often seen one come down Hill Rd. and Bandstand with a mahout on its back, stopping at shops for blessings and of course a fee.
(Adrian D’souza is India’s premier Jazz drummer. He has worked in New York for many years with renowned American Jazz vocalist and educator Roseanna Vitro, and has also performed with The Philharmonic Orchestra of Slovenia and The United Nations Jazz Band.)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)