Jazz in Bengaluru upbeat, but venues too few

Interest in the genre is growing, musicians say. Tomorrow is World Jazz Day

Jazz like many other music genres has suffered because of dwindling live spaces to perform, and the ongoing pandemic. Despite this, artistes vouch there is an increased interest in the music form.

International Jazz Day is observed on April 30. Metrolife asked jazz artistes about how the city can revive its jazz music scene.

One of the pioneers of jazz in the city, Jagadeesh M R, director of The Bangalore School of Music and founder of MoonArra World fusion ensemble, started Cafe Jazz sessions at Alliance Francaise this February. “It garnered a lot of attention and response from young musicians, which is also when we discovered that a lot of young jazz bands exist in the city,” he says. Many of them were looking for a platform to perform. As the bands performed in the series, they were chosen for the Jazz Day event, happening on April 29-30.

About the Bengaluru jazz music scene, he says that for any music form to thrive in a city, venues, promoters, and a sizeable number of musicians practising the genre, are needed.

“These factors are all complementary to each other. Indian classical music is popular because there are big festivals and a large number of musicians performing and practising it,” he says. Seeing the large response to the series he created, Jagadeesh vouches that the
jazz scene is alive. “There are several venues coming up and they want to support live music. Jazz has a mature audience, with listeners above 30, whose purchasing power is more and the venues will also be looking at this factor,” he adds.

Lessons during pandemic

Vivek Santhosh, a trained Western classical musician, moved to jazz almost 10 years ago.

Vivek, who is a part of a jazz trio, makes music with influences from Indian, folk and Carnatic music, in a jazz context. According to him, listeners for jazz music have increased, over the last 10 years.

“With music available easily on the phone, one doesn’t have to find records to listen to jazz now,” he says.

The pandemic affected every music genre. But Vivek sees the period as a phase where he could listen to and learn more about jazz. “I was able to take online lessons from artistes like recent Grammy winner and American jazz pianist Taylor Eigsti,” Vivek says.

Niche market

Gerard Machado, a jazz guitarist and part of the Gerard Machado Trio, who has been playing for over 40 years now, says the form gives him the freedom to express himself musically. “Jazz hasn’t changed much over the years. Like everywhere across the world, Bengaluru too has a niche market for it,” he says. The city needs more music schools, venues, concert halls and sponsors to promote the music form, he adds.

Increasing interest

Suvankar Ghosh, a rock n roll and classical guitar player got interested in jazz eight years ago.

“I wanted to learn the art of improvisation, which is why I got into jazz fusion and jazz standards eventually,” he says. “More people are showing interest in jazz and its derivatives and listening to it, compared to heavily distorted guitar music,” he adds. Many spaces that hosted music events, closed down in the last few years, leading to a lack of spaces to perform. “A lot of musicians left for Mumbai and other cities, looking for better opportunities,” he says.

Ghosh hopes that Cafe Jazz will help revive the scene. “We need an ecosystem where jazz artistes can share their experiences with newer artistes, explaining the nuances of it,” he says.

Rex Rozario of the Rex Rozario Quintet, who has been performing jazz for 40 years now, feels there was very little scope for jazz earlier, but it is picking up now. “A lot of youngsters are increasingly aware of the form,” he says, stressing on the need for dedicated spaces and events to bring more attention to jazz in the city.