Fan of jazz? The Madras Jazz Festival features top artists from Europe and India

From a previous edition of the Jazz Festival, held in Mumbai in 2023.
| Photo Credit: Special arrangement

Eddie Prithviraj has always disliked referring to the Madras Jazz Festival as a ‘small’ event. This is why when a panel moderator in Mumbai called it a ‘boutique festival’, he immediately chose to co-opt it. “It sounds so much cooler,” says the founder-curator of the festival.

“It’s hard to explain to people that only about 2,000 people attend the festival but it is a dedicated audience that is intent on listening to great jazz and its multitudes,” he says.

Ten editions of the Madras Jazz Festival have taken place in various parts of Chennai since 2011. They have exposed the audience to the harmonic implications of the saxophone, keys, trumpets and bass coming together. While John Coltrane and Nina Simone continue to rule jazz playlists on Spotify and YouTube, Eddie says that the European style of experimental, genre-bending jazz is what he aims to bring to the audiences here. It is probably the only reason why sub-genres like Estonian indie-jazz-alt-pop will make its way into Chennai parlance this week.

Lonitseera
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Special arrangement

The festival on December 8 at Alliance Francaise of Madras will feature the band Lonitseera from Estonia, led by singer-songwriter Kaisa Kuslapuu; Czech singer, composer and instrumentalist Milli Janatkova; and the New York-based Silvan Joray Trio featuring Hillai Govreen. They will each be bringing vivid soundscapes using instruments including the flute, double bass, jazzy piano, guitar and percussion in their sets.

“Milli will be collaborating with Maarten Visser (Chennai-based saxophonist and composer), a long-term patron of the festival. I haven’t heard their set yet so it is going to be a surprise for me too. But over-all, the festival will be bringing Euro-centric jazz, and a form of modern-style jazz from New York,” he says.

Hitting the bass notes

Milli Janatkova
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Special arrangement

Eddie is clear that jazz and Chennai have long been friends. The city has always had great music, musicians and listeners, he says and adds that a crowd would always fill the seats during jazz nights at Unwind Centre in the 1990s and 2000s. When he championed the first edition in 2011, a group of 200 enthusiasts showed up at the Audi showroom in Nandanam to listen to new jazz and brought quite the fervour, he says. Over the years, artistes like Louis Banks, Brian Molley, Maarten Visser and Matt Littlewood, have frequented the festival. This zest for jazz continues to persist in the city which is why the organising team decided to make the event ticketed for the first time.

A picture of a performance from 2018.
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Special arrangement

Eddie grew up in a household that listened to all kinds of music including funk and rock, but truly began loving jazz when he was DJ-ing at Taj Coromandel’s old bar, Fort St George. “I am a blues and a death metal kind of guy. When this gig came up, I took it because the paycheck was good. This is back in 2006 and 2007. The true delight of this process, however, was discovering various forms of jazz,” he says.

Audience from 2018, Chennai.
| Photo Credit:
Special arrangement

For a novice jazz listener, Eddie struggles to recommend albums and bands. “You should listen to this band YellowJackets and the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s ‘Take Five’. Actually, do you have a couple of minutes,” he asks. He whips out his phone, connects to a sizeable bluetooth speaker and plays famed Indian guitarist Prasanna’s ‘Ragabop’. “There is so much jazz talent in our country. Best to start here,” he says.

The Madras Jazz Festival by Exodus and Unwind Centre, is on December 8 at Alliance Francaise of Madras. Gates open at 5pm. Tickets are priced at ₹999 on BookMyShow and Insider.