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JAZZ in Bollywood

Please excuse the “plug” for a play of mine - JAZZ. There are two reasons to do it. REASON ONE. To entice an audience into the auditoirum (my plays never have more than five persons in the auditorium). REASON TWO: JAZZ may interest some of you.

The best things in life are a fluke.

I was attending a sombre session between Girish Karnad and Mahesh Dattani at Prithvi, and as luck would have it Denzil Smith is present. I tell him, I think I’ve an idea for a play. And I strut off. That day, Denzil and me exchange, 101 sms’. We set up a meeting with Naresh Fernandes (Editor, Time Out and Mumbai lover), who showers us with a feni, pattice, cookies, and a lec-dem with video clips on his favourite subject on earth: the influence of Jazz in Bollywood.

For me, that is the beginning of JAZZ.

That is also the beginning of that old feeling I know nothing, This is the same feeling which had surfaced during Mahadevbhai, 3 Sakina Manzil, Three Ladies of Ibsen, Cotton 56 Polyester 84.

I’ve been told by a theatre elder, “theatre requires patience, passion and persistence to research, collaborate and constantly produce work for over 20 years.” And as a rule, I believe what elders tell me.

My relationship with Denzil Smith, is that of an audience member and an actor. I’ve seen him in plays good and indifferent and one movie with Amitabh Bachchan. He’s at his best when he reads the words of Dom Moraes - to a bit of blues. Driving around Mumbai with Denzil (wherein I was late for every single appointment) is a process and an education. I familiarise myself with the names which rattle out from other people’s’s tongues. I learn my vocabulary (and I am still learning) of jazz, which is minimal, controlled, through rhythm, and sound. We rummage (and scan) through hand-written letters, sketches, photographs, reviews and posters, as well as music.

But my work is weighed down by uncertainties. Should I recaim the past? Or should the past resonate in the now? How does one demonstrate the playing of jazz? Coz at times, jazz can be so simple. An improvisation while fooling around after a rehearsal or a bit of jamming or a new sound which forms the back-bone of a piece. How does one show that on a half lit stage?

Meanwhile Denzil has fixed one more appointment. This time I’m attentive. I sense, music is in everyone’s blood. Also, I sense in every household I visit, generosity.

Thanks to Sunil Shanbag, I see George Booth’s interview of Leslie Coutinho and Anthony Gonsalves and others. Booth is a musical anthropologist from New Zealand who is working on the unsung heroes of Bollywood. The interviews bring little details to my notice.

I hear new rhythms and newer formulations.

I see sorrow.

Someone takes me to see a run-down studio. I see the remnants of equipment. Then we move around, there is dust. The beauty of that studio - the musty smell, a spool, guitar strings, piano stool, the moss on the jolly board and rodents all somehow flow together - never leaves me. It’s a landscape that continues to inspire. And in the midst of all that is, I see people overwhelmed with stardom, with fame & glory, sorrow & suffering, above all, failure.

And yet, their lives are heroic. Even today, when I recall the scene, my heart splinters into a thousand pieces.

Cause that’s life. And somehow its percolates into our piece. That’s art.

Its JAZZ!

This is what we’re trying to discover and invent. Denzil and Naresh and Etienne Coutinho (Director) and young Rhys D Souza (the grandson of Sebastian D’souza, who was the right hand hand for Shanker-Jaikishen) and Bugs Bharagava. All quintesential Bandra Boys. All of who love our JAZZ. Them, slightly more than me.

Theatre is a crazy paradox, especially for a practitioner in India. An art creator who wants to build, not destroy.

I look around, a musician (high on hash) points out a few boys jamming in a rehearsal. They are being educated. It is wonderful. Then, when you look the other way, you realise there is nothing but destruction. Cause these boys have nowhere to to go. They are too good for Bollywood; and not ready for the World.

All this has influenced the ebb and flow of JAZZ.

At times, the writing goes nowhere.

I have this idea for staging the play. Someone, anyone is just lying under a tree and doing nothing, for hours - with some Chick Correa music in the foreground. But, for one thing, that isn’t theatre, and two, I had a deadline which I had overshot.

So I panic. I over-eat, have a tagda peg of Old Monk. I go for a walk at midnight in the rains. Thats when you totally love this city. Everything morphes. Nakabandi, makeshift eateries, technicians reparing street signals, sea breeze, dogs, rodents and whores. I pretend I’m a musician, and everything connects. The design of a flyover resembles a percussion instrument, the honking of a 1983 taxi, the cycle bell of a coffee seller from Madurai, a brass band returning home. And that’s the fun of it.

I stop being me and embrace the unexpected …. I learn to JAZZ

Short excerpts from the play.

ONE.

In 1959

Hamid Sayani’s Amateur Hour was broadcast on Radio Ceylon

Now, my transistor is cast off, I’m ancient and forlorn

75 paise for an Espresso; plus ogle at cabaret chicks

Swing and bepop and the blues with Chocolate Chick

TWO.

Me: Leslie met Dave Brubeck in Delhi. You heard of Brubeck? Crazy bugger.

He: Yes.

Me: In those days there was prohibition. No booze. So they jammed in a hotel room at Claridges. There was: Leslie, Frankie (powerful saxist, maan), Brubeck, and that drummer – whatshisname ….

He: Joe Morello …

Me: Good, you know. Morello and Leslie. Leslie demonstrated the phrases from Indian tabla. Gave them a flavour of rhythm patterns. Ten matras. Mathematical progressions. He played the bols on his drum set. The phirangs were maha impressed. Saala, he was good. Apna Leslie. He used to read books about music. He lent me. You know, Jim Cooper, Mac Bacon, Portgelli. I’ve them lying around. If you’re interested.

He: I am.

Me: Then that Brubeck returned to his studio and created Take Five. It has a drum solo. Leslie used to play it for us. In 5/4 time. It a classic. I feel so proud when I used to listen to it. You know Take Five?

He: Yes.

Me: Composed by Paul Desmond. He was a baap among alto sax players. Can you play it?

He: What?

Me: Take Five.

He: I’ll try.

Me: Boy, musicians don’t try. Either they play. Or they can’t.

He: Yes.

Me: Take 5. It used to be our national anthem, maan.

He: Yes.

Me: Hit the notes, maan. … Wait, wait, wait. Where’s the ephing balance?

He: Balance?

Me: You’re playing the sax. Not the toor toori at Chowpatty.

He: Yes.

Me: Remember: one thing. When you play music, you’ve to find the truth.

He: Yes.

Me: Finding the truth is not easy.

He: Yes.

Me: You know why? Cause truth in music is that whose contradictory is also true. You want a whiskey before you start?

He: No.

Me: Me, I’m going to have a peg. Hope that’s ok with you?

He: Yes.

Me: Okie dokie. Now, don’t gawp. Take it away, boy. Show me what you got.

THREE.

WOMAN 1: (In Konkani) Marriage is part of God’s good purpose in creation. It is therefore not to be thought of lightly but held in honour.

WOMAN 2: (with a touch of irony) Film industry is sooo communal. Its too much mhanje too much. They didn’t want Non Hindus to play. It’s a fact. Except Shanker Jaikishen who didnt want Non Catholics. They weren’t communal. We were planning to return to Goa, the next day. Luckily, that evening, he got a small recording. They liked what he played. They told him, “if you leave Bombay we will break your legs.” Ha Ha. They wanted him to play music for them. No auditions. He got regular work. He became a workaholic.

WOMAN 3: He was sooo lazy. Kaam chor. Used to trip with the other guys. No self control. One night during a show, he came back-stage. He caught me with Richard … or was it Jude? Can’t remember. He didn’t take it, well. Bacha saala. Men are such babies. He bought a bike. Thought it was Harley Davidson, but it was a khatara Bullet. We had an accident. It was deliberate. He had that streak. So I left him. Started a beauty parlour in Kolkotta.

WOMAN 4: We shifted to Kolkotta from Burma. My husband met Sonny Rollins and Stan Getz in Bombay. Your heard Getz’s salaam to Bombay. Here it is ….

WOMAN 5: Dejection took hold of me. I popped pills like crazy, maan. But I can still hold a high octave. I cut a record. In Konkani. Its doing, so so. I’m the Bessie Smith of Konkani. Oh yeah.

WOMAN 6: He was the last person, I spoke to. I told him to scatter my ashes in the Ganges – like Charles Mingus. Then, I slashed my wrists. By the time, he reached here, I was dead.

JAZZ @ Prithvi Theatre
JANUARY - 3rd (Thursday) and 4th (Friday). 2008.
PFCites: For further information, please contact: 26149546

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