Apr 28, 2017
Delhi and jazz aren’t old friends. The “scene”, as live performances in the city are usually called, has never been dominated by any niche genre of music enthusiasts, such as EDM in present-day Bengaluru, or metal a decade ago, but has evolved from the early 2000s’ nights of rock, metal, hip hop and fusion, to country pop, and the umbrella genre ‘indie’. Live performances were attended by an ‘anything-goes’ crowd, that came for the booze, stayed for the revelry, but weren’t particularly loyal to the music at hand. Now Punjabi pop dominates most night scenes in kitschy pubs that look the same— halogen-lit stucco walls within which old rock covers set the stage for nostalgia, till pop music takes over (think Chainsmokers or The Weekend).
Jazz clubs are a fascinating new subculture in a city that usually made do with dancing ‘ironically’ (and un-ironically) to Honey Singh or Badshah; there are a smidgeon of them across the city now. When speakeasy-styled bars were all the rage a few years ago, a bar called PCO was the first to programme live jazz performances, to set the mood for this 1920s Prohibition-era themed bar. A denouncer of labels, Potbelly, a tiny but lovely restaurant in Delhi’s bohemian Shahpur Jat, served Bihari food, and had regular jazz evenings till last year. The Delhi Jazz festival organised every year by SEHER, (which also does the annual Purana Qila South Asian Bands music festival), is one of those memorable Delhi winter fests where people come picnicking to the sprawling Lodhi Gardens with their bottles of wine, lighting up as music fills the place. However, The Piano Man Jazz Club in Safdarjung Enclave is leading the jazz front, with 500 live performances behind it. Homegrown artistes such as Vasundhara Vee and Dhruv Vishwanath play nights as often as visiting ones. At times, it’s even a Chuck Berry tribute night!
