Mumbai Grooves to Banyan Tree’s World Jazz Concert

The World Jazz concert tour of India 2024, hosted by Banyan Tree, swept into Mumbai for an evening of very entertaining jazz. It blew in like a hurricane – appropriately so, being curated by Alexander “Hurricane” Beets, a fine exponent of the tenor saxophone as well.

Banyan Tree should be applauded for persevering with their jazz endeavor; it is gaining momentum in India with each successive World Jazz edition.

This is the fourth successive year that the World Jazz Festival is being held in multiple cities in India. The jazz, as in previous years has been of excellent quality despite the lack of “big names” from the world of jazz. Jazz music is like a huge ocean with brilliant star performers in it; Beets seems to have the knack of unearthing some star talent and bringing them on the World Jazz tours to India.

Also, the curation of the event was handled very well and proved to be a success even with those in the audience who were not necessarily regular jazz listeners. Each band played just one or two numbers before another was introduced; this variety of flow worked out well. Not many in the audience were ready to leave at the end of the concert, a true ‘proof of the pudding’.

The music of jazz is now becoming quite a universal sound, lending and borrowing from varied musical sources in its journey.

The evening provided jazz (music and musicians) ranging from Brazil to South Africa, Macao and Hong Kong with stopovers in New Orleans, New York and Amersfoort in the Netherlands. Jazz from the sound of a big band with a horn section, the gentle and sensitive bossa nova from Brazil and standards were all on display with a generous dollop of the Blues thrown in. It was a very enjoyable mix indeed.

Several jazz masters were honored – from the saxophone giant John Coltrane, the South African jazz pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim (earlier known as Dollar Brand), Count Basie, Horace Silver, Duke Ellington and all the artists who have contributed to making jazz the ultimate live performance art form there is.

The Tom van der Zaal Quartet with the amazing Fleurine on vocals and guitar played a couple of gentle, sensitive Bossa Nova tunes. One was a composition of Fleurine’s which she sang both in Portuguese and English bringing with a generous flavor of this sensuous rhythm from the land of Jobim. Tom van der Zaal was to return later in the evening with his fine playing on the tenor saxophone.

Playing an entirely different style of piano, Siu Tin Chi from Macao, an obviously classically trained pianist played two introspective numbers, both her own compositions – “The Dance” and “Inner Child”.

John Coltrane was suitably honored with an excerpt from his magnum opus, “A Love Supreme” by Ben van der Dungen on saxophone with his quartet. Justice was done to Coltrane in this rendition.

Alexander Beets led a horn section of four saxophones with a spirited version of Count Basie’s immortal “Jumpin’ at the Woodside”, so appreciated by the audience which then demanded an encore- and got it.

This concert spanned the history of jazz with music from the 1930s up to the present time. The music and its presentation was appreciated by the fair-sized audience.

We must have many more such jazz concerts in Mumbai.