International Jazz Day: How Trincas Brought Jazz Back Home

Kolkata is deeply entwined with India’s jazz history and on International Jazz Day today, there’s still some steam behind the movement, among artists and venues alike.

From singer Pam Craine to saxophonist Braz Gonsalves, Benny Rozario, pianist Louiz Banks and later, Usha Uthup and all the way to today’s experimentalists like the Bodhisattwa Trio and Shonai, Srinjoy Ghatak and several more, Kolkata has been a proving ground for many.

On the venue front, Trincas remains the longstanding name which recently began honoring its jazz legacy once again, with the resurgence extending to include clubs like Skinny Mo’s Jazz Club, AMPM and Broadway Hotel, among others.

With its distinctive backdrop of padded velvet on stage, Trincas’ Weekend Jazz Lunches are reintroducing jazz culture, according to the venue’s third-generation owner Anand Puri. Located on Park Street, Trincas was first established as Flury & Trinca, a confectionary, in 1927 by Quinto Cinzio Trinca and Joseph Flury.

It became a singular name and a tearoom in 1939 – and Flury’s would become a famed Kolkata landmark as well – and was then bought by Om Prakash Puri, Swaran Puri and their partner Ellis Joshua in 1959. It was steadily redesigned as a restaurant and a club by 1969, hosting jazz music at a time when the style was dominating American shores.

Like all things in art and culture, jazz did have its slump and although Kolkata kept its jazz legacy alive (somehow) throughout the decades, what’s happening in 2024 is a reflection of a committed interest in the genre. Where five-star hotels would on occasion host regular jazz/pop nights in the early 2000s, even Trincas and other venues would host “special editions.” Puri says they would have a great lineup but still fail to pack the house. Along the way, Trincas too hosted a variety of genres, including pop and Bollywood tunes to keep the crowd coming.

In the last few years, there’s been a “sustained excitement” for jazz in Kolkata, according to Puri. “It may have been seen as old-school or fuddy-duddy earlier, but now it’s seen as cool and retro-nostalgic. That’s exactly the kind of feeling Trincas specializes in,” he adds.

Puri joined the family business and turned restaurateur just before the pandemic hit. Around then, Trincas was anything but a jazz bar, even though that public perception still lingered around the hotel venue. “The pandemic allowed me to think deep and hard about what people wanted Trincas to actually be, I arrived at nostalgia and all the things that work with it – red velvet curtains and a stage, cozy lighting, memorable food, and of course the idea of Jazz. And so began a re-imagination of the space that took Trincas back to the 1920s and 1960s but looking forward,” Puri says.

It’s no doubt that live music in Kolkata, let alone jazz, has had a tough time surviving. Venues have come and gone and promoters have shifted base as well, in search of steadier ground. Puri says, “Live music here has survived obscene taxation, political turmoil, changing tastes, an exodus of tastemakers, wild swings in reputation and finally the pandemic which was the first time the music stopped.”

Accessibility is key at Trincas, which currently has Willie Walters’ Jazz Quartet performing as the in-house band. Puri says about the vibe, “You might suddenly get a drums solo, or a keyboard solo, and no matter your background, you’d be able to appreciate this gentle introduction.”

Walters – a veteran who has played in bands since the Seventies – was bassist for the regular evening band at Trincas and was approached by Puri shortly after the pandemic had eased. “I wanted to fulfil this idea that Trincas could be a jazz venue,” Puri says. Much like The Piano Man in New Delhi, Trincas too saw a bigger appeal in hosting jazz on Sunday afternoons to create a very different atmosphere compared to concerts at night.

With help from jazz artist Pradyumna Manot, Walters enlisted vocalist Aneesha Seth, drummer Arya Mukherjee and others. Soumojit Sarkar filled in on keys and the band played their first Weekend Jazz Lunch show in August 2021.

Puri adds, “It’s been almost three years of weekends now and we still see a huge turnout. Most people have never heard jazz before and probably couldn’t spot it. But it’s there, and it’s good, and it feels good to be a part of it. Guests leave happy for the experience and come back for more with friends.”