After getting this article about Bandra's music scene, I looked up
about Maurice.. and one of his recordings was Bombai Meri Hai... which
brought back memories of the Jetliners who were also popular in Kenya in the
60's so much so I have 2 of their LP's.
So imagine our surprise and delight when we met both Indra Rajah and
Anton Gunawijeya at the Shadows convention which we were members for many
years, and became friends( from 1992 ), so much so sharing lunches and dinners
at each others homes as Anton lives in the UK, in Croydon near us and Indra and
his wife Eva in Switzerland, but come here often.
You get all this gen as the only vid I have of Bombay meri hai is by
the Jetliners!😊 CM
Tellis Like It Is:
Celebrating Bandra Through Music
Over a period of time, places get associated
with aspects of life - something especially true with music. There's New
Orleans, unanimously voted as the ‘Cradle of Jazz'. Closer home, various cities
and towns have spawned their own Gharanas.
On an infinitesimally smaller scale, as a
lifelong Bandra resident, I'd like to believe that the Queen of the Suburbs has
been Mumbai's cradle of music. Real estate dynamics and mega demographic shifts
may have irreversibly altered the townscape, but nostalgia always takes me back
to the days when Bandra was almost entirely an idyllic milieu of tranquil,
leafy bylanes and quaint bungalows - which, if you sauntered across on a lazy
Saturday or Sunday morning, you'd invariably encounter the wafting plink-plonk
of a piano, the plucking of a guitar or music from a gramophone record. Ah,
nostalgia!
Queen of the suburbs... queen
of music too, if I daresay. This is where then Bombay's renowned big bands
originated and bandleaders resided.
Did they - hey, could
they - get any bigger than Maurice Concessio and Johnny Baptist? In the Bandra
of yore, Maurice was always very pleasantly in-your-face. You'd encounter his
Swing Sensations at weddings and dances - and in those days, these were the highpoints
you lived for. You'd encounter Maurice even when he wasn't making music. Who
can forget the almost ubiquitous van that trundled around Bandra with its
unforgettable catchphrase: ‘Music grows where Maurice goes'.
It would be fair to say that Maurice Concessio
and Johnny Baptist defined the contours that would shape Bandra's musical
legacy. The talent clearly abounded especially amongst the Catholic community -
every household would have a piano, a guitar or a wind instrument - often, all
three... and more.
And of course the old radio! One that the
entire family would crowd around every Saturday night - lapping up All India
Radio's very popular Saturday Date - and every morning taking in Radio Ceylon
in between chores and getting ready for school or work.
Little influences like these, plus stints with
church choirs and an inherent love for music, shaped a community where music
was an integral part of life. A wedding was unthinkable without first booking a
band; every house-party simply had to have an extended sing-song session with
someone tunefully flogging the piano or battering an old guitar - throw in some
nifty vocal harmonies and falsettos, and you had everything that ranged from
cacophony to some seriously refined impromptu music.
For a few decades, the wedding band business
thrived. No recorded music back in those days. If you dared go against the
grain and not have a live band in session at your wedding, better not get
married at all! Unthinkable really!
And so, the likes of Country Funk, The Combustibles,
7th Galaxy, Nightbirds, Fame, Crimson Rage, Friendship Clan and Infra Red
enjoyed a dream run - almost iconic in fact. A
trend clearly started by the big bands of Maurice Concessio and Johnny Baptist.
Oh well. Attempted to put together a piece on Bandra's music legacy down the
years, and I haven't even mentioned icons like Louis Banks, Shaan and Roy
Venkatraman. Louis Banks!! Often called the ‘Godfather of Indian Jazz' - so
huge, he's even earned a Grammy nomination. Bandra is very proud to count amongst
its residents, this institution of music whose amazing versatility ranges from
purist Jazz to Indipop and Fusion - not to mention jingles and musicals. And
there's Shaan - whose versatility as a singer transcends Bollywood, pop, rock
and hip hop - across languages too. Guitarist Roy Venkataraman, of course, went
on to find fame with Bob Marley's Wailers... no less!
Like Roy, drummer Adrian is another of
Bandra's many music exports - plying his trade on the European circuit.
One could go on and on about Bandra's music
personalities down the years - so many honourable mentions, a piece of this
size couldn't possibly do justice to all those talents. So let me instead move
on to the musicals. Those were pretty big too in the day. And very dear to my own
heart, having been in several of them.
Carl Mendis' take on Joseph and the Amazing
Technicolor Dreamcoat is still fondly remembered decades later. Joe and
Celeste's remakes of Annie and the several Witness editions provided memorable
milestones too. Peter the Rock is another. And can I ever forget Oh Artaban!
written by then local boy Francis Nigli, with music from Merlin, and including
none other than Salman Khan in its cast. I had the privilege of playing the
protagonist role in that one.
On the other side of the spectrum, Bandra's association with high-profile events like the Mahindra Blues Festival, which now happens every year at the Mehboob Studios and features world-renowned blues artistes, takes the local music scene to a different level.
To an extent, Jago Mumbai - the community
radio station I was closely associated with - was the closest one could get to
being Bandra's own radio frequency, even if it did cater to a wider radius.
Which reminds me of a few other Bandraites who have also plied their trade as
RJs.
Music in Bandra is a theme I cherish deeply.
In a sense it's a tapestry of my own life. I get nostalgic about the roles I've
played in the various musicals, the acoustic band Voices I once fronted, the
St. Andrew's Zonals... or even the impromptu street jams on the old Bandstand
walls and culverts. That last bit, a slice of life out of almost every Bandra
boy's growing years. Amongst the haunts that attracted jams, there was the
Irani restaurant opposite what is now Globus - where the sing-a-longs continued
behind closed shutters long into the wee hours of the morning.
Much has changed around the Bandra of today.
But every time I hear a terrace party come alive in the dead of night with a
trademark singsong, I get transported back to a time when these weren't the
exception that they are now, but the happy rule. Little trinkets around the
jewels that comprise Bandra's musical legacy. Thank God for memories!
"MUSIC GROWS WHEREVER WE GO"
Do also read http://www.tajmahalfoxtrot.com/?p=579 on
Maurice
Comments