CHENNAI: All of us would have definitely swayed our heads, or even made a couple of dance jigs while listening to A R Rahman’s Hello Mister Ethir Katchi or Sillunu oru Kaadhal. The flavour of jazz – be it in guitar or piano interludes – make these songs enjoyable.
Kollywood is no stranger to having Jazz elements in their songs. Composers who like a western touch in their songs have extensively experimented with the style. In recent times, composer Santhosh Narayanan invited jazz musicians from Chennai and Australia to record for the film Jigarthanda.
One of them, Napier Peter Naveen Kumar, a bass guitarist, says, “Elements of jazz are used in film music and there are some playback singers like Andrea and Sunitha Sarathy who bring out the style when they perform the same songs on stage. For instance, if Andrea’s Who’s the Hero is performed live, we make it more jazzy and the audience seem to respond to it. But I don’t see a thriving market for jazz in its pure form, in the city. It has little significance in the city and the concerts, which happen rarely see, little over half the halls full,” he says.
But there’s a niche crowd that wants to listen to its purer form. These are people who have been exposed to western music and know what Jazz is, he says.
Naveen plays a more classical form of jazz for the corporate crowd occasionally, perhaps when a foreign client visits.
“You can’t find full-fledged jazz concerts happening frequently in the city. But a concert that gets a considerable footfall is the one by Madhav Chari, a celebrated pianist. It happens once a year. Then again, mostly old people listen to a English songs,” he says.
Considering there are not many who want to listen to jazz, how do artistes manage to continue making music? “We play for film music,” says Maarten Visser, a saxophone player from Netherlands, who played for Harris Jayaraj in Yennai Arindaal. “As far as I know, there are a very few jazz artistes in the country. They network and play pure jazz, but that does not provide for a living. So we do other things, like collaborate with music directors and play for their films,” he adds.
“Or you could fuse it with, say carnatic?” suggests Shyam Benjamin, a pianist from a jazz band called Blue Tone and a music director. Shyam observes a similarity in both styles and sees a room for fusion. He says fusing the both could help jazz musicians explore more and keep playing.
“Personally, I love playing other kinds of music as well, so that makes things work for me, but when I compose, there will be a jazz touch to it,” he says.
While the artistes agree that pure jazz has not found a considerable space, they are hopeful about the future. Academies of music sich as SAM’s music school and KM Music Conservatory have begun to teach courses on jazz. This could mean many taking an interest to learning jazz, say the artistes.
“Probably five years down the line, once the students who graduate from these schools get settled, there is hope for them to play more jazz. Also, music directors experiment more with styles these days. There would be more of jazz to listen in the years to come,” signs off Naveen.