The Telegraph: Song Sung Blue

Calcutta lost its jazz in the 1970's, with the arrival of the communists, and their imposition of high taxation on entertainment. The Telegraph takes a stroll down memory lane, on the jazz "scene" in its heydays, and comes up with a lovely piece, seeped in nostalgia...

The sound of jazz vanished from Park Street after the Seventies. But some of the musicians survive. 

(Top) Linda Thomson at Trincas;  Carlton Kitto and Rubin Rebeiro. Pictures by Sanat Kumar Sinha and Bishwarup Dutta Carlton Kitto, one of the most popular jazz guitarists in the city, began his musical journey at Moulin Rouge in the early Seventies. “The restaurant was owned by a French lady called Delilah who would sing along with our band Carlton Kitto Jazz Ensemble. Cancan dancers would delight the guests later in the evening,” recollects Carlton. After performing for two years at Moulin Rouge, Kitto moved a few blocks ahead to Mocambo, where Pam Crain, the queen of crooners, made her debut in the Sixties. The interiors of the place remain frozen in time with its red Rexine sofas and continental fare but the voices that drew an elite audience are gone. Even as Calcutta rock bands and Bangla bands take over Park Street, why is the blaring of a trumpet, or a blues note from a saxophone, still missing? Where are the Anglo-Indian and Goan musicians who made Park Street the capital of Indian nightclub music from the mid-Fifties to early Seventies? Where are the ladies with magic names from another world like Ripsy, Marlene, Shelley Myers, Marie Samson, Colin and Gene Mac? Ripsy was known as the Marilyn Monroe of Calcutta and Shelley was a lookalike of actress Jane Mansfield. “But Pam Crain was ahead of them all,” smiles Kitto. Drink and oblivion “While some turned to alcohol or drugs, many died of starvation,” remembers Kitto, who switched over to teaching at the Calcutta School of Music for 12 years. Now he teaches jazz and classical guitar at schools and at his residence. “I’m trying to keep authentic jazz alive in the city,” says the survivor. Every evening Kitto is strumming on his guitar accompanied by a pianist at the Chowringhee Bar at Oberoi Grand. “The jam session at Mocambo and Blue Fox on weekends had the youngsters queuing up to shake a leg,” he says. Like Kitto, Noel Martin still plays at Trincas, with his band Sweet Agitation. He has been there for 21 years. All the other members are much younger. He earns about Rs 10,000 a month. “I have a large family and almost no savings. The situation is the same for many guys like me,” says Martin. With no savings, no pension and investments solely in instruments, old age looks bleak. Tax-ing times The introduction of entertainment tax by the state government on restaurants and bars with live music put an end to the show in the late Seventies. “Things also changed when Trincas introduced Hindi music in the mid-Seventies,” remembers Kitto, who says Park Street restaurants then started to become “plain eating joints”. Many migrated to Canada, Australia and the UK. Some went back to Goa. Some turned into solo acts and others joined the Hindi film industry as studio musicians. Calcutta remains home to only a few. Rubin Rebeiro started his career at Golden Slipper, a place that would remain open till 6 am. Live jazz music and cabaret dancers made it one of the most happening night spots in Calcutta in the swinging Sixties. The place is now known as Hotel Raunak, facing Elite cinema. American jazz Popular for his Nat King Cole voice, Rebeiro had done his bit to popularise American jazz. “I’ve performed with Louis Bank Brotherhood at Blue Fox for six years after which I went on to sing for Sunny Lobo’s band at Grand Hotel,” says Rubin. “I’m lucky that I’ve managed to carry on with music, unlike many others who simply had to leave this city,” says the singer and double bassist who occasionally appears in gigs with Kitto or Banks. Rubin remembers performing with saxophonist Joe Pereira, more popular as “Jazzy Joe” in Goa these days, who chose not to let go of music and returned to his hometown to pursue his passion and release his solo album. The city gradually lost sight of other saxophonists like Nickey Kohlo and Dominic Fernandes apart from drummers like Johnny Edmund, Victor Shreeves and Clive Hughes who would perform at Great Eastern, Spencers and Grand Hotel. Bosco on the trumpet and Blasco on the trombone, together known as the Monserrate Brothers, moved to Mumbai and now perform live with international jazz acts. Rock, not jazz There is more music happening now with the new bands. Nondon Bagchi, ace drummer of Hip Pocket, a classic rock band, started out when he was 15 at Trincas playing for a band called Checkered Tricycle. He feels that the success of the Bangla bands in Calcutta has reinforced the need to pursue music among young musicians. “There are young kids in every block trying to do music seriously. We should sit up and take notice,” he stresses. But this doesn’t mean good news for the old-timers. It is not only their age; the music has changed. “New-age bands do not want the older musicians. You can’t blame them since they are more into rock and electronica and young faces look pleasant,” says Kitto. The new bands are more rock and hip-hop than jazz and thrive on live gigs around the city. And they have enough difficulties of their own. “It is not easy to strike a deal with record companies who are apprehensive about taking out English albums by Indian artists,” says Avinash of Supersonics, a rock band. New is old The young bands, in fact, look at themselves the way the older musicians perhaps did when they were just setting out. For Rahul Guha Roy, lead vocalist of alt-rockers Cassini’s Division, music is a “really risky business”. “Most of our earnings go into upgrading our gear to keep up production standards,” he says. Monojit Dutta of Orient Express, the lead man of the only Latin band in the city, agrees. Musicians today also live from gig to gig, without a pension scheme or savings. “Many take up part-time jobs, as a result of which the music suffers,” says Dutta. More news Meanwhile, there’s news of some more of Park Street’s leading lights of yore. Usha Uthup is an Indi-pop diva. Louiz Banks, who was Louis then, is now a popular music composer in the Mumbai music industry. He had his first brush with fame in The Louis Banks Brotherhood, shaking up the evenings at Blue Fox with Pam Crain and Braz Gonzales by his side. Kitto joined the The Louis Banks Brotherhood for six years where he had Don Saigal, Pam Crain and Braz for company. Braz made it big with his saxophone in the city but had to return to his home in Goa. He pursues spiritual and gospel music now. Pam Crain has retired today but Donald Saigal, her husband, performs solo around the city. Marie, a crooner at a restaurant on Central Avenue, is now an established jazz singer in Sydney, while Gene Mac has travelled all the way from Great Eastern and Grand Hotel to singing jazz in Canada. “There was Eve, a singer at Trincas, a complete knock-out because of her lovely voice. She got married to a rich Armenian and lives in Tehran now,” says Bagchi. One of the last Cancan dancers was seen 10 years ago in an old-age home, more than 80, and abandoned.

CHANDREYEE CHATTERJEE AND MOHUA DAS

Frontline: Kitto's jazz yatra, July 2006

Shtillll on the Calcutta jazz nostalgia drive... here's a great post on Carlton Kitto, Frontline, July 2006:

SUHRID SANKAR CHATTOPADHYAY

For Carlton Kitto, Kolkata's uncrowned king of jazz, it has been a lonely crusade to keep the tradition of Bebop alive.

IT is the year 1941. A group of jazz musicians, including Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie and Kenny Clarke, are jamming late into the night at Minton's, a jazz club in Harlem, but it is still too early for them to call it a night, for one member of the group hasn't arrived yet. In one corner of the stage is a chair reserved for him and next to it is an amplifier. Not far from Minton's, in a hospital, a young man waits for the lights of the wards to go out. Then, climbing over the boundary wall, he arrives at the club, takes his place in the chair and plugs his Gibson ES-150 guitar into the amp-box and joins the show. The guitar player, Charlie Christian, affectionately called Mr. Bop, was to die a few months later of tuberculosis at the age of 22, but not before changing the face of music forever. The nightly jam sessions at Minton's were taking jazz to its next stage of evolution - the Bebop era.

Sixty-five years later, in Kolkata, at the Chowringhee Bar inside Oberoi Grand, an elderly man sits hunched over his guitar, accompanied by only a pianist. A jazz aficionado could easily, even amid the haze of smoke and the clinking of glasses, catch in him a glimpse of the gaunt shadow of Christian. In an age where jazz has changed, perhaps unrecognisably, Christian's legacy still remains strong in Carlton Kitto. His story is one of artistic integrity and refusal to compromise one's passion for fame and fortune. An acknowledged maestro in the Indian jazz circuit, and a legend in his own right in Kolkata, Kitto's success lies in the respect he commands from fellow-musicians rather than in financial gains. Where many of his peers, in jazz chose the greener pastures of the film industry in Mumbai and the advertising world, Kitto preferred the relative obscurity of Kolkata to the corruption of his art. "I took up the guitar not as a profession, it was because of my love for jazz. Actually the guitar was only a tool to express my musicianship."

His love affair with jazz started early in life, mainly through his mother's huge collection of 78 rpm (revolutions per minute) records of jazz greats. It was while listening to these in his winding gramophone that he first heard the Benny Goodman Sextet featuring Charlie Christian. "It was a tune called Memories of You. I suddenly heard this guitar come and go - barely 22 bars, but it blew my mind. That was a turning point in my life," he said.

It was in Christian's playing that Kitto first came upon chord clusters, parallel progressions, vertical progressions, comping - the subtle art of playing chords behind a soloist or a singer. When most young people were swaying to the rock'n'roll of Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard, Kitto was analysing and learning chord embellishment, substitution, and connection - the means by which Christian revolutionised the world of jazz.

He managed to make a name for himself as an up and coming musician in Madras in the late 1960s, around the time that Duke Ellington and his band came to the city. The young Kitto, armed with his guitar, walked into the Duke's rehearsal one day. "Hey guys what have we got here, said the Duke," and invited Kitto to play. Ellington's group never had a guitar player, and so it was with some trepidation that young Kitto started jamming with the giants. "I played Satin Doll, Take the A Train, How High the Moonand stuff like that. And some of those guys started playing with me, and then the whole band joined in."

Ellington was so impressed that he volunteered to help Kitto out in his formal training as a musician. Needless to say, Kitto also got a front-row ticket to the concert. True to his word, the Duke, on his return to the United States, arranged for Kitto to receive instructional materials and sheet music from Berkeley. "They were very boring materials, but I went through them diligently, hoping they would help me out someday, but then again I went back to Bebop," Kitto said. Ellington died a few years later, but long after that Kitto kept receiving materials from Berkeley, some of which he has preserved till date.

Later, in international jazz fests held in India, Kitto jammed with legends like Sonny Rollins, Clark Terry, David Leibman, Larry Coryell, Chico Freeman and Charlie Byrd. He has been hailed as the greatest exponent of Bebop jazz in India, but the experience with Ellington will remain special.

Going abroad to pursue a career in jazz was something Kitto could not afford. So he chose the next best thing for a jazz musician - shifting base to Calcutta. "There were some incredible musicians playing here at that time - Benny Rosario, Cecil Dorsay and Braz Gonzalves. After playing with them for a while, I decided to branch out and play what I wanted to play. By that time (late 1970s) I had acquired good knowledge of Bebop and had made up my mind to only play that," said Kitto.

In Bebop improvisation, vertical progression is used, where the notes of the chord from the progression are applied together with chromatics, passing tones, and the notes of the embellished and substitute chords. Though in the new jazz concept it is the horizontal progression, where the scale for each chord is applied in the improvisation - for example by John Coltrane in `Giant Steps', or Miles Davis in `So What' - Kitto prefers the variety that vertical progression offers with its combined scales, arpeggios of the chords, and chromatics.

"I personally find it, in every way, more exciting to make use of this progression. One very important player is Jimmy Raney, who seldom left a chord unturned. Besides him there were others like Dick Garcia, Joe Puma, and early Pat Martino." Ever the purist, Kitto never uses hammer-ons in his solo, nor does he employ any shortcuts in his chord work. Though technically flawless, he never allows melody to take a back seat, and his phrasings are both lyrical and complex.

But for all his talent and ability, it has not been an easy life for Kitto. "In the early days, as I was finishing one contract, I was getting two more offers for double the salary. But things have come down to such an extent now, with Bangla bands and fusion bands capturing the market, it's the youngsters," he said. But on those rare occasions of a Carlton Kitto concert, it is invariably a packed hall.

It's hard for jazz musicians

He does not bemoan his lack of financial success, nor is he bitter that his popularity is restricted only within the jazz circuit. "It's not just me. Barring a few, it's very hard for jazz musicians all over the world. I know of Bebop players in Australia who play ragtime and honkytonk just to make ends meet," he said.

He does not have any regrets of not leaving Kolkata even when jazz departed from it. "Kolkata was the place that encouraged me and made me what I am - the audience, the students, the jazz club members who were mostly all Bengalis. I would never like to leave this place," he said.

Ten years ago, lamenting the slow demise of jazz in the city, he told this reporter, "My mission is to keep Bebop alive through teaching". But things have improved since then and he admits that there seems to be a resurgence of jazz in the city. Today, Kitto does not have to rely only on tuitions for his livelihood. The Chowringhee Bar has brought him a whole new set of fans, many of them foreigners staying at the hotel.

After a long wait, Kolkata's uncrowned king of jazz finally has a place to play his kind of music without having to cater to demands of pop tunes by uninformed audiences. "The main thing is that the general manager of the hotel is a jazz lover. He has even set up channel music which plays only mainstream jazz. Most important, I have found a regular place to play my music," said a beaming Kitto.

Skinny Alley at Opus, on an incandescent afternoon.

Yesterday did not start well at all. Woke up with a hang-over (from the typical building party I have now become accustomed to - only this time I was the host), popped in a Saridon, and tried to go back to sleep. Could not.

A couple of hours later, Soni and I were in an auto, bound for Opus. What the heck! This was supposed be a special Opus afternoon. Skinny Alley was here.

For those who do not know Opus, its a pub. For those who do know Opus, its a lot more. After three years of choking, coughing and cursing in Bangalore, I can safely call Opus the high-point of my life here.

It is a lovely bungalow, converted into a free-flowing, beachy Goan kind of a place, which serves you good beer, decent food, and great music. And it has great people. Not only does Opus offer probably the finest eye-candy in the city, but it has also given me some good friends. And I am gratfeul for that. For the ties that bind the people in Opus together is definitely the music (and definitely not the service). Such friends are always welcome.

Anyway - I digress. We walked into a typically crowded Sunday afternoon at the pub, and found ourselves drifting to the front. The great Otis D'Souza hailed us, all liquid charm and grace, with a smile that is as infectious as it is genuine. Carlton breezed by, Gina and Shonali hovered. Opus was on.

Also on were these middle-aged people on stage. Skinny Alley needs little introduction, at least to those of us who grew up in Kolkata. Any band which Amyt Datta fronted was always revered, and Skinny had Amyt really coming into his own. Then there were the usual suspects who had made Skinny Alley not only popular (so is Assma, I am told), but also very original: Jayshree on vocals (and the writer of the songs), Gyan Singh on bass, and the two Jeff's - Rick on drums and Menezes on keyboards. Old warhorses, seen it all, to turn it on, once more.

And turn it on, they did. Rarely have I attended a gig which has given me such goosebumps. This was an incredible show, of power, grace and creativity. Outstanding. Breath-taking.

Jay was brilliant with the vocals - control, poise, power and flawless delivery. As usual. She remains the finest Calcutta rock vocalist I have heard. Jeffrey Rick blazed on the drums, and the vocals on "Green Ring" (Steely Dan). Jeff Menezes and Gyan were as good as ever.

Then there was Amyt. The grey hair, the poker face, the easy control. Brought back memories of the Amyt-da we grew up listening to - as Shiva, Hip Pocket et al. Only better.

He was incredible. Covering rock'n'roll to jazz to blues to funk, changing scales, controling the tempo, jamming with the keyboard. On "Voodoo Chile" and "Bodhisattva", and on the originals "In and Out", "Fence" - he blazed through with an incadescent performance which had the audience stunned.

I have rarely seen a performance like this, having been to numerous shows now for over 20 years. I have seen Amyt a hundred times before. But yesterday was special. It was at a different level. There has always been debate as to where he fits in among India's top guitarists. Those of us who saw him perform yesterday, we have the answer.

As we stepped out, I felt enveloped. By a strange sense of satisfaction and well-being, of satiation and wholesomeness. I cannot describe it better. I felt fulfilled.

Soni, who had a few minutes ago, done the a very groupie thing, put in a very nice point. "After a show like this", she said, "I feel proud to have grown up in Kolkata, where such music still flourishes."

Absolutely.

These guys have struggled. Probably not made it to what they could have been, being from Kolkata, practising in garages and attics, suffocated by Bengali cultural hang-overs. But they are as good as it gets. The sound is original, international and world-class. The talent is awe-inspiring.

And I appreciate my home town for that (I admit, I don't do that too much), for having sheltered and nourished them for so long. Allowed them to be what they are.

Even today, while other city kids (and I have seen a few) hang out in malls, or daaance to the latest remixed poop, I see Kolkata kids lugging their second hand Gibsons to some hole in the wall, to practise. Could be Dylan, could be Dead, could be Suman. Could be their own "Bangla Rock". Mocked and maligned by mothers and aunts, they go on, hoping for their break. Hoping to be Amyt Datta one day.

Long live Rock 'n' Roll.... Amen!