International Jazz Day comes to Bengaluru this weekend

International Jazz Day Bangalore 2023

It is that time of year again when jazz aficionados try to catch the best shows in town and amateurs attempt to capture the nuanced timbres synonymous with this sound. As in the past, this weekend too, will see Bengaluru play host to home-grown talent as well as foreign artistes.

The Bangalore International Centre (BIC) is taking the initiative to introduce the present generation to this form of music. Often considered an acquired taste, a special concert for children, featuring the Lucas Santana Brazilian Experience, will be an eye-opener to this genre.

For a chunk of the following day, BIC in collaboration with the Bangalore School of Music (BSM), will present some of the best-known and upcoming talents in this genre. Post noon till well into the evening, jazz lovers can pace themselves on a steady stream of melody. Apart from the Jazz Revival by Thomas Chandy, the Joey Sharma band, students of BSM and others performing on that day, is the Sunshine Orchestra Brass Ensemble from the AR Rehman Foundation, Chennai.

Conducted by Lisa Sarasini from the United Kingdom, the Sunshine Orchestra consists of students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds who have an aptitude for music. According to Jagadeesh MR, director and head of jazz at BSM, “There is no barrier to appreciating or mastering any art form — it can be understood by anyone. Jazz comes from the most impoverished of backgrounds, with roots in the painful era of slavery. From such humble beginnings, it has flourished and it still continues to evolve today.”

It certainly has. Emanating from the mists of pain in New Orleans, jazz has reached far-flung corners of the globe such as Indonesia, Switzerland and Australia. This year, artistes from Germany, South Korea and Serbia are part of Banyan Tree’s World Jazz Festival in Bengaluru. To be held on April 28 at Chowdiah Memorial Hall, the third edition of the World Jazz Festival in India from April 20, will see it enthral audiences in Delhi, Pune, Dehradun and Mumbai.

Launched in 2020, the aim of Mumbai-based Banyan Tree’s World Jazz Festival was to bring world-class jazz to India, says Nandini Mahesh, one of its directors. Following the success of their debut performance in Bengaluru last year, their lineup this time comprises the Sven Rozier Quintet from South Korea featuring Lizzy Ossevoort and Baer Traa from the Netherlands, as well as the Susanne Alt band from Germany and the Lucas Santana Quintet of the Brazilian Experience.

Nandini and her husband Mahesh Babu, who curated the show, believe improvisation plays as huge a part in Indian classical music as it does in jazz, making them a great playground for fusion. “It is fascinating to see these artistes transcend musical boundaries and have collaborative presentations,” she says.