HORN FALLS SILENT BUT THE MUSIC KEEPS ROLLIN'

AD Walter Theodore ‘Sonny’ Rollins not been drawn to spiritualism, jazz would not have come back to India in 1978 with a big bang.

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The eclectic musical form, often considered homologous to Hindustani classical in its creative autonomy, arrived early—by steamships carrying black American musicians on long sojourns to Bombay in the 1930s and through musically-gifted soldiers stationed in Calcutta during the Second World War. In 1938, travelling Filipino musicians even brought the form to Bihar’s Jamalpur, then a bustling industrial town. After a few post-independence decades when every metropolis hosted live jazz venues and Bollywood music directors generously borrowed from its standards, the tempo slowed down.