Jazz and race in colonial India
The role of Anglo-Indian musicians in the diffusion of jazz in Calcutta
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jazz.v4i2.123Keywords:
Anglo-Indians, India, race, Roy Butler, Teddy WeatherfordAbstract
Musical forms such as ragtime and jazz were played in Calcutta’s hotels and clubs, important institutions in elites’ social life in colonial India. The musicians could be European or American, when a foreign band was hired for a season. Some of these formations tended to include Anglo-Indian members. Anglo-Indian musicians acted as go-betweens, passing down the theoretical knowledge of western harmony as well as the practice of western instruments to the generations of post-Independence India. Moreover, they were the first Indian musicians to perform jazz and blues standards in Calcutta or Bombay, around World War II. Thus, they played a major role in the diffusion of jazz and blues music in India.
References
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Pinckney, Warren Jr. (1989) ‘Jazz in India: Perspectives on Historical Development and Musical Acculturation’. Asian Music XXI, no. 1: 35–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/834073
Reynolds, Harry (1928) Minstrel Memories: The Story of Burnt Cork Minstrelsy in Great Britain from 1836 to 1927. London: Alston Rivers.
Arnold, David (1988) Famine: Social Crisis and Historical Change. Oxford: Blackwell.
Basu, Durga Das (1998) Constitutional Law of India. New Delhi: Prentice-Hall India, 7th edn.
Berendt, Joachim E. (1987) Nada Brahma: The World is Sound. Rochester: Destiny Books.
Cabral e Sa, Mario (1997) Winds of Fire. New Delhi: Promilla & Co.
Caplan, Lionel (2001) Children of Colonialism: Anglo-Indians in a Postcolonial World. Oxford: Berg.
Collett, H. J. (1948) ‘Thirty Years of Jazz in India’. Illustrated Weekly of India, 22 August.
Darke, Peter. n.d. ‘Teddy Weatherford’s Indian Recordings’. Matrix 107–108: 3–6.
Darke, Peter, and Ralph Gulliver (1976) ‘Teddy Weatherford’. Storyville 65 (June–July): 176–86.
——(1977) ‘Roy Butler’s Story’. Storyville 71 (June–July): 178–90.
DeVeaux, Scott (1998) ‘Constructing the Jazz Tradition’. In The Jazz Cadence of American Culture, ed. Robert G. O’Meally, 485–514. New York: Columbia University Press.
Dorin, Stéphane (2005) La Globalisation des formes culturelles. Le jazz et le rock à Calcutta. PhD dissertation, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris.
——(2012) ‘Swingin’ India: Circulations coloniales et postcoloniales du jazz en Inde’. L’Homme 202: 169–92.
Farrell, Gerry (1988) ‘Reflecting Surfaces: The Uses of Elements from Indian Music in Popular Music in Jazz’. Popular Music 7, no. 2: 189–205. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0261143000002750
——(1997) Indian Music and the West. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fernandes, Naresh (2011) Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay’s Jazz Age. Bombay: Roli Books.
Gist, Noel Pitts, and Roy Dean Wright (1973) Marginality and Identity: Anglo-Indians as a Racially-Mixed Minority in India. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Hawes, C. J. (1996) Poor Relations: The Making of a Eurasian Community in British India, 1773–1833. Richmond: Curzon Press.
Kinnear, Michaël (1994) The Gramophone Company’s First Indian Recordings 1899–1908. Bombay: Popular Prakashan.
Lott, Eric (1993) Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lotz, Rainer (1984) Sleeve notes, Jazz and Hot Dance in India, 1926–1944. Harlequin, History of Jazz Series, volume 4, HQ 2013.
Park, Robert E. (1928) ‘Human Migration and the Marginal Man’. American Journal of Sociology 33, no. 2 (May 1928): 881–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/214592
Parsonage, Catherine (2005) The Evolution of Jazz in Britain, 1880–1935. London: Ashgate.
Pinckney, Warren Jr. (1989) ‘Jazz in India: Perspectives on Historical Development and Musical Acculturation’. Asian Music XXI, no. 1: 35–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/834073
Reynolds, Harry (1928) Minstrel Memories: The Story of Burnt Cork Minstrelsy in Great Britain from 1836 to 1927. London: Alston Rivers.
Published
2012-03-28
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Dorin, S. (2012). Jazz and race in colonial India: The role of Anglo-Indian musicians in the diffusion of jazz in Calcutta. Jazz Research Journal, 4(2), 123-140. https://doi.org/10.1558/jazz.v4i2.123
